Disabled Parking

Baroness Trumpington: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will consider replacing local disabled parking badges with a universal nationwide scheme.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, a national scheme was introduced in 1971 under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. That scheme—now the blue badge scheme—is still in operation. Local schemes are introduced by local authorities under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 at their discretion. We will look at the issue during the current review of the blue badge scheme. In the meantime, we continue to discourage local authorities from introducing measures that restrict the mobility of disabled people.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Is he aware that there would have been no need for me to ask this Oral Question had I received a helpful reply to my Written Question? Is he aware how difficult it is for a genuine applicant who lives in one part of London yet works in another to get two parking badges? Would it not be easier to have one universal badge, at least for London?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am sorry about the problem in relation to the Written Answer. I hope that we did not give an unhelpful Answer, but if we did I apologise.
	A review was announced towards the end of 1999 to consider a national disablement scheme. A national scheme to which everybody had easy and ready access would plainly be of real assistance. We know that local authorities introduce their own schemes and different rules apply to different schemes. We also recognise that in some places it is very difficult for people to get access to a scheme outside the area in which they live. The review will look at that.

Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, most disabled organisations support the request made by the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. Far too many local schemes are restrictive and they also cause confusion. My noble and learned friend mentioned discouraging local authorities. I do not believe that that will do a blind bit of good, because they will press on with their own pet schemes regardless. We need forceful government action to prevent the proliferation of damaging local schemes. What forceful action do the Government propose?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, we instigated a review, we produced a consultation paper on 14th December 2001, the consultation period ended on 15th March 2002 and we hope to make announcements in relation to it during the summer. The points that my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, made have already arisen in the course of that consultation and they will be taken into account.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, does the Minister agree that abuse of the blue badge system is a serious issue? Life is difficult enough for people who have genuine disablement without having problems of trying to park when someone is in their spot. What do the Government propose to do, apart from completing the review, to make life easier and to discourage those who abuse the blue badge system?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am not sure that I know the extent to which the blue badge scheme is being abused. Plainly, a balance has to be struck between combating abuse and making it readily possible for disabled drivers to find parking spaces. The review will need to try to strike that sensible balance.

Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I declare an interest as a disabled driver who holds a European blue badge. I assume that I can use my European badge in Europe, but I cannot use it in London. What is the reason for that discrepancy? If we can get agreement at European level, surely we can do so at national level.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the blue badge scheme is a domestic scheme, as was implicit in the noble Baroness' question. We do not have anything like the European blue badge scheme in Britain at the moment. That is one of the issues that we need to look at when we consider the responses to the consultation document in the course of the review.

Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, since the orange badge scheme—now the blue badge scheme—was introduced in 1971, administered by local authorities, have there been complaints that councils are using different criteria and standards, leading to postcode results?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, there have been complaints about the individual schemes introduced by local authorities under the 1984 Act. The noble Lord has also raised a separate issue about the extent to which local authorities, using their powers, enforce the blue badge scheme. There is a sense that it is enforced differently in different places. In order to be effective, it must be enforced in a uniform way throughout the country.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, may I put the other side of the argument? I was on Westminster City Council when these decisions were first considered. There is a significant problem in central London, particularly in Westminster, where parking for residents is divided into different zones, though drivers with a Westminster disabled badge can use it anywhere in Westminster. Does the Minister accept that allowing all national disabled badge holders to park in central London might be self-defeating, because the result would be overwhelming for the parking system, which is very restricted? Even those who live in central London would have no hope of finding a disabled place.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, as the noble Baroness correctly points out, four central London boroughs—Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, a part of Camden, and the City of London—are exempt from the national scheme; as she indicated, they became exempt right at the beginning, in the early 1970s. I think that all of those issues need to be re-examined in the course of the review because arguments that might have been strong then may not seem so strong now.

Baroness Uddin: My Lords, will the review consider the possibility of including those who are autistic in the scheme? Many autistic children, and their parents, do not qualify for a badge because, although they are learning disabled, they are able to walk. Is that not incredibly discriminatory? Is it also not the case that, far from acting fraudulently, many of those eligible to claim a badge do not do so?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I think that I have addressed the abuse issue in my answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond. As for the extent to which the review covers the autistic and their carers, I do not know the precise limits of the review. I shall therefore, if I may, write to the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the mere mention of Kensington and Chelsea will bring me, like Pavlov's dog, straight to my feet? I declare an interest. Like my noble friend Lady Gardner, I bring to the Minister's attention the fact that one of the local system's advantages is that it enables disabled local residents to have a place outside their house marked specifically for them. Does the Minister agree that, if there were to be a different scheme, that type of regulation should continue?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the noble Baroness makes the very important point about disabled people's need to have a disabled parking space right outside their own front door. That applies not only in Kensington and Chelsea but right across the country and it needs to be considered in the review. I should add, if I may, that Pavlovian dog and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, are not two groups of words that I would associate.

Middle East

The Earl of Sandwich: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What they are doing to promote the success of the latest peace initiative in the Middle East.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the Government welcome the efforts of the United States special envoy Anthony Zinni to broker a ceasefire and implement the Tenet security work plan and Mitchell committee recommendations. The Saudi initiative is a rare and worthwhile opportunity to advance the cause of peace. We have urged Arab leaders to endorse it, despite Israel's refusal to allow President Arafat to attend the Arab League summit in Beirut today and the absence of other key leaders. We shall maintain our pressure on the parties to work for a political settlement in which two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognised borders, as endorsed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1397.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, I am sure that we should all be grateful to the noble Baroness for that positive reply. Does she agree, however, that the Saudi initiative is particularly welcome because it could lead to a guarantee of Israel's security? Does she also agree that the United Kingdom and the United States should now be building up our relations with the front-line Arab states rather than issuing threats in the context of anti-terrorism?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I agree that this is an important and extremely welcome initiative, and I am sure that we all wish our friends in the Arab League well in their discussions in Beirut today. On 18th March, the Prime Minister issued a statement welcoming United Nations Security Council Resolution 1397 and the initiative by Crown Prince Abdullah. I draw to the noble Lord's attention the statement only yesterday by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary saying how much he hoped that Arab leaders would endorse the Crown Prince's initiative. Very similar statements have been made by the European Union and the United Nations and indeed by President Bush. I think that this is a time to concentrate on what is positive in the possibility of moving forward.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, may I first congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, on an extraordinarily timely and perceptive Question? Is the Minister aware that the President of Syria, Mr Bashar al-Assad, announced at the Arab summit that he is calling on Arab states—particularly Jordan and Egypt—to break their ties with Israel? The issue of whether the Saudi peace initiative has the support of other governments has therefore become crucially important in paving the way to a possible peace in the Middle East. Have Her Majesty's Government made clear to friendly Arab powers how very seriously we take the Saudi initiative and our own strong support for that way forward?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, inevitably, as we are discussing this Question at the very time that the matter is under discussion in Beirut, I suspect that there will be breaking news throughout the day, with leaders at the Arab summit making comments. It is obviously the case that there are some who may wish to take issue with some parts of what has been proposed by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. However, I think that, generally, the welcome which has been given in very positive terms both by my right honourable friends in another place and by others in the United Nations and in the European Union speak for themselves. I emphasise that those statements have been made very openly by my right honourable friends and that we are actively urging those at the summit to take forward Crown Prince Abdullah's suggestions.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, while my noble friend is absolutely right that, as far as peace is concerned, a real olive branch should be offered at this time, is it not a fact that the leaders of Jordan and Egypt will not attend the summit? Does she also agree that there is a great deal to be discussed? It is not a matter of a simple yes or no. Real negotiations have to be undertaken. Does she agree with that?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, it is a matter of fact that the King of Jordan and the President of Egypt have not attended the summit although I am bound to say there has been a great deal of speculation in the press on the reasons for that. Until we hear directly the reasons behind those decisions, it is difficult to judge the position exactly. However, I point out that I believe that both have sent representatives. This is, of course, an enormously complicated and difficult subject. The Crown Prince's proposals touch on a number of difficult and sensitive issues, as I am sure all your Lordships are aware. Detail will be a matter for discussion. I also remind your Lordships of the importance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1397 and the importance of the fact that Israel called the resolution balanced and the Palestinians welcomed it as a step forward to realisation of their aspirations. It is important to take the two together.

Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, does the Minister agree that clips from Palestinian newsreels, seen, incidentally, by noble Lords on all sides of the House as they are prepared by Palestinian Media Watch, which show imams, religious leaders and teachers telling young people of the glory of committing suicide in the name of Allah—I am certain that Allah would not require that—are making the conditions for a peaceful settlement much more difficult to attain? If President Arafat really believes what he says in English, he should say that in his own language to the people to stop these incidents so that the Palestinians can have a state side by side with Israel where everyone could live in peace, which I believe is the wish of the Muslims, the Jews and all kindly and good thinking people.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness that suicide bombing and the misplaced fervour of those involved constitute a dreadful terrorist practice. I do not know whether the noble Baroness saw news footage last night of a young mother who hoped that her four year-old son would grow up to become a suicide bomber. That was a truly chilling piece of evidence. Of course, there should be a clear statement from all people of good will that suicide bombing is unacceptable. However, it also leads us to a recognition of the sheer despair that is felt by such a mother and by young people who engage in such terrible and unacceptable practices.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords—

Noble Lords: Next Question!

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I think that we must move on now.

Foreign Languages

Lord Watson of Richmond: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will drop their proposal to end compulsory foreign language learning after age 14 given the decline in foreign language learning in schools and universities which such a step would accelerate.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, this is a proposal in the Green Paper, 14-19: extending opportunities, raising standards, which is open to consultation until 31st May. Views expressed during consultation will help to inform our decision.
	Our proposals balance the need for greater choice for pupils and the importance of foreign languages by proposing a statutory entitlement to them at key stage 4. Our document, Language Learning, includes our ambition that primary school children be entitled to study languages by 2012.

Lord Watson of Richmond: My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer but I remain perplexed, particularly on the issue of consultation. I should like the noble Lord to answer the following question. A year ago the Government set up the National Steering Group for Languages, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. It has consistently warned of a crisis in foreign language learning in this country with a 30 per cent drop in students studying French at A-level and a drop of over 15 per cent in students studying German at A-level. Why, having set up the steering group under their own chairmanship, did the Government give it only 12 hours' notice of the proposal to curtail compulsory language learning? Was it because they knew only too well what the view of the steering group would be?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Lord will recognise that we take seriously the representations of the steering group and are, indeed, concerned about the provision of modern languages teaching in our schools today. The noble Lord will also recognise that the proposals that we are putting forward enhance foreign languages provision for the future. However, this issue cannot be switched on and off easily if we are to provide opportunities for children to start foreign language study at the earliest possible age which must be the base. It takes time for us to provide the teachers who are required in primary schools. The noble Lord will recognise that the Government have put forward a whole series of proposals to encourage people to take up foreign languages teaching following their university careers.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, does the Minister accept that very many children get excited about learning a foreign language when they go abroad not with their families but on a school trip or one sponsored by a voluntary organisation when they go into shops and have to speak the language of the country they are visiting? That is when they get interested. If this proposal is implemented, they may have learnt the relevant language from an early age but they will switch off at 14 and never have that experience because they will not go on those trips. It seems utterly ridiculous.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Baroness will recognise that the opportunities for young people to go abroad are much more extensive now than at any time in the past. Therefore, the opportunity to stimulate an interest in learning foreign languages can arise from a very early age. That is why we are concentrating one of our strategies upon primary school education. We want to respond to the stimulus that can arise at any age. Our lifelong learning proposals ensure that people have the opportunity to take up foreign language learning in adult life in relation to their work. We accept the point the noble Baroness makes that the stimulus may arise at different stages in students' careers. Our proposals encourage the development of any such stimulus at any appropriate point.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, first, does my noble friend recognise that there is a fear that these proposals might undermine the viability of some university foreign language courses in our country? Secondly, does he recognise that these proposals might also have a deleterious effect on viability and student mobility within the European Union for British students, especially those on EU-funded courses?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, my noble friend makes an important point. I reassure him that the Higher Education Funding Council is well aware of potential adjustments in provision in higher education and is taking due account of that and providing the resources necessary to ensure that that takes place smoothly. What we seek to achieve is an increase in participation in foreign languages post-16 because it is in the approach to A-level that students prepare themselves for their higher education courses. There is nothing in these proposals which will do anything other than enhance opportunities post-16.

Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, how is it that schools everywhere in Europe manage to teach children a foreign language from the age of eight or nine? Why is it that Her Majesty's Government are not able to provide that service?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Lord will recognise one obvious fact; namely, that the one foreign language which is universally taught in European schools is English. The status of English on the world stage is such that schools in European countries concentrate on teaching it to pupils at an early age. However, we are learning that lesson. We recognise that if our students are ill prepared in terms of competence in a second language, they cannot play their role within the European Community and grasp opportunities within Europe as well as they might. That is why the noble Lord will recognise the value of our following the example he just indicated of concentrating resources to ensure that our students enjoy the opportunity of foreign language study at an early age in junior schools.

Lord Dearing: My Lords, does the Minister agree that if the proposals in the Green Paper go forward, although the learning of a foreign language will not be compulsory in key stage 4, every 14 year-old who wants to continue learning a foreign language will nevertheless have the opportunity to do so?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am happy to confirm that very important point. I emphasise the obvious fact that we intend to ensure that all students who show an aptitude for foreign languages and who wish to pursue such studies in school should enjoy those opportunities. We are merely recognising that for some students foreign languages are not their métier. They currently vote with their feet by withdrawing from foreign language classes. We seek to concentrate the curriculum for those aged 14 to 16 on key skills, allied to choice for students. Those who choose foreign languages will of course enjoy full opportunities.

Castlereagh Police Station Break-in

Lord Smith of Clifton: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What are the implications of the break-in at Castlereagh police station in Northern Ireland and the theft of classified information; and what steps they are taking to prevent a reoccurrence.

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, this was a most serious incident. The Government are determined that the facts should be established as quickly as possible and that all necessary remedial action is taken. The Secretary of State very promptly established a review of the incident to be conducted by the former Permanent Under-Secretary of the Northern Ireland Office, Sir John Chilcot, and the former Inspector of Constabulary, Mr Colin Smith, who will act as an assessor. This will run in parallel with the criminal investigation conducted by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The terms of reference of the review have been placed in the Library.

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that reply. When is it expected that Sir John Chilcot will reach his conclusions on the matter? Why are so many papers—I have asked questions about this previously—seemingly so easily purloined time and again in Northern Ireland? Does he agree that the blatant theft from one state agency by another makes it extremely difficult to condemn the equally illegal activities of others in Northern Ireland?

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I cannot say when Sir John will report. It would be improper to speculate. We want a full, in-depth and detailed investigation. The noble Lord said that the documents were easily purloined. That is one of the points that Sir John will have to investigate. We need to wait for his informed conclusions. The noble Lord spoke of theft by one state agency of documents belonging to another state agency. There is no proof or evidence of that. We must see what Sir John's conclusions are before we jump to hasty, sometimes dangerous and very often unfair conclusions.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, many people are concerned about the cost of inquiries in Northern Ireland. For example, the Bloody Sunday inquiry cost an estimated £200 million. While we are discussing this serious matter, I ask why it is necessary to have three inquiries instead of one.

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, the ombudsman for Northern Ireland is not presently continuing her investigation. I believe that the Secretary of State was absolutely right and that noble Lords would have been most displeased if no immediate inquiry had been ordered. That inquiry is into the general matters that are contained in the terms of reference, which are: how unauthorised access was gained; the extent of any damage to national security; the adequacy of actions subsequently taken to mitigate any damage; how to prevent unauthorised access there and in similar buildings elsewhere in Northern Ireland; and whether there are any wider lessons to be learned. None of those matters would be comprehended properly in a police investigation. Therefore, the Police Service of Northern Ireland is rightly investigating allegations of crime and Sir John is rightly investigating the matters that I have detailed.

Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House recognise that the remarks that he has just made—they were to the effect that it is desirable to wait until reports have been received before one leaps to conclusions—bear some resemblance to the arguments that were advanced by the rest of the House yesterday on the Animal Health Bill but which were rejected by the Government? Would he like to explain why on one day it is not desirable to wait until reports are received before rushing into action but on the next day it is necessary to do so?

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, because the two situations are entirely dissimilar.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Williams of Mostyn: And, my Lords, yesterday was yesterday!

Business of the House: Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill

Lord Carter: My Lords, I thought that it would be helpful if I drew the attention of the House to the change of business on tomorrow's Order Paper. Since we cannot now proceed with the Committee stage of the Animal Health Bill, for reasons known to noble Lords, the Second Reading of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill has been tabled in its place. Since it has not been possible to give longer notice of the change of business, I have asked that, exceptionally, the speakers' list should be kept open until 10 a.m. in order to give noble Lords the greatest possible chance of putting their name down to speak. The House will, of course, sit at 11 a.m. tomorrow.

Lord Rogan: My Lords, I protest at the Government's shameful—I use that word with a heavy heart—decision late last night to bring forward the Second Reading debate on the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill to tomorrow. This morning I went to see the Government Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Carter. I have to say—with equal regret—that it was not a pleasant meeting. Indeed, it was almost like having an interview without coffee.
	The Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill, when implemented, will bring about wide-ranging changes to the Province's criminal justice system. It is a Bill of 92 clauses and 13 schedules. However, when it was debated in another place, the Government failed to provide for discussion on more than 30 clauses. That is why the debate in your Lordships' House is so important. It is also why we should have been given longer than the mere 24 hours that we now have to prepare for the Second Reading debate.
	As a result of a longstanding commitment, I am unable to be present tomorrow; so, too, are almost all of my Northern Ireland colleagues. I hope that the Government will reflect on their handling of this episode and, most importantly, ensure that it does not happen again.

Lord Fitt: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Bill will have far-reaching consequences for all of the people in Northern Ireland? It will change the whole legal system that has been there since 1922. During its passage through the other place, some very controversial issues were raised. There will be bitter resentment throughout Northern Ireland—I express it on behalf of those whom I seek to represent—at this blatant attempt by the House to prevent discussion on this most important of Bills, which arose from the Good Friday agreement.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, I am an Ulster Unionist Member who did not vote against the Government yesterday. I understand that the Chief Whip has decided that the Bill will now be rushed through tomorrow because some Ulster Unionist Members did vote against the Government.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Kilclooney: Oh yes, that was said this morning. Will the Chief Whip therefore confirm that this display of pique and pettiness is a sign of a government who are no longer sure of themselves?

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, my noble friend knows that there are many very angry elected Members of Parliament in the other place who are concerned about what happened to the Animal Health Bill in the House of Lords yesterday. Can he tell us what is now going to happen to this extremely important Bill? I understand that it was welcomed by the NFU and a majority in the other place. It was greatly anticipated by many departments of state throughout the country, particularly MAFF.

Lord Molyneaux of Killead: My Lords, I have a note from the Chief Whip's office that was circulated yesterday at around 7.15 p.m. It was no doubt an attempt to be helpful. It simply said:
	"We tried to contact you this evening but I suspect you have all gone home for the Easter Recess".
	There is a message there, is there not, my Lords?

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, we on these Benches find it intolerable that this timetabling change has occurred. We had been assured that Second Reading would be after Easter. Next week I was going to devote my time to this very lengthy and technical Bill. Frankly, I have to apologise in advance for the fact that any speech that I make tomorrow on Second Reading will be rather generalised and banal because I have not had adequate time to prepare.

Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I hope that it can never be said that this Bill has been put on the Order Paper simply because of what happened in the House yesterday. Surely other legislation could have been brought forward. I fully understand that the work has to be completed and that, because of yesterday's actions, the noble Lord has been left with a space to fill, but the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill is a vital issue. It is gravely unjust that there should be no possibility to prepare for it seriously. It makes a nonsense of the Second Reading. But, above all, what message does it send to the people of Northern Ireland?

Lord Dubs: My Lords, I suppose that in an ideal world we would have had more notice, but in an ideal world the Government would not have lost the Animal Health Bill yesterday.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Dubs: My Lords, I repeat, in an ideal world, the Government would not have lost the measure that was lost yesterday. No one can quarrel with that—not with my definition of "ideal". But, whatever the difficulties facing the Chief Whip—I know him personally, as do all noble Lords—he does not deserve the personal criticisms that have been made of him today. That is not worthy of this House.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, what happened yesterday had nothing to do with Northern Ireland. The Chief Whip will understand when I say that it also had nothing intentionally to do with me. As a result of what happened yesterday, the Government have gained five days of business. Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday. For my Province, the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill is a very, very significant piece of legislation. My Chief Whip and I have agreed, through the usual channels, to take the Committee stage in Grand Committee. For Ulster Unionists, for the Ulster people and for myself on this side of the House, I ask the Government to make a gesture and to allow us time to consider the Bill.
	My noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew of Twysden, who has been Attorney-General and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is not available. To the best of my knowledge, many more of my Back-Benchers who are interested in the Bill will not be available to enable the House to have a meaningful debate about the future of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. Second Reading debates are very important. I ask the Government to reconsider the decision.

Lord Carter: My Lords, perhaps I can take the House through the difficult situation that I faced yesterday evening. The Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrat Party Chief Whips very reluctantly agreed to this business being tabled. They did not welcome it, but they understood the difficulty that I faced. In that situation, they recognised that I had to make a difficult decision and quickly.
	The Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill was my original choice for tomorrow's business. The Opposition chose to take the Animal Health Bill instead. I have no complaints about that. As the House had made it impossible to proceed with the Animal Health Bill, I simply returned to the original option and the original plan. I immediately say to the noble Lords of the Ulster Unionist Party that they would not have known that because that was discussed some three weeks ago in the usual channels. When we decided to proceed with the Animal Health Bill, the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill dropped out.
	This situation is not of the Government's or my making. Yesterday, the House was perfectly entitled to vote as it did. I wish that it had voted differently, but having so voted the House must not be surprised that, as business manager, I had to reorganise the business quickly. The change had to be made because of yesterday's vote. Therefore, for whatever business we tabled there would be only 48 hours' notice. Of course, I appreciate the inconvenience. Whatever business I put down would be very inconvenient to those involved. I am extremely sympathetic to the case made by the Ulster Unionists, but the fact remains that whatever I had tabled would have inconvenienced one group of noble Lords or another. My noble friend the Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, and the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, and all those who want to speak in the debate tomorrow have been inconvenienced.
	We did our best. As soon as there was a possibility that the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill would be on the Order Paper, officials in my office telephoned the Ulster Unionist Party's office in the House of Commons. I reached the decision at about 7 o'clock last evening. The officials rang two different numbers, but received no reply. They then sent an e-mail to ensure that the UUP knew as soon as possible about tomorrow's business.
	I quite understand the inconvenience that this change of programme has produced for all those involved in Northern Ireland matters. I can assure your Lordships—your Lordships know me well enough—that no spite whatever was intended to those engaged in Northern Ireland matters. I am sorry, but the House must understand that after it had voted to cancel two days' business at 24 hours' notice—under the rules of the House the business had to be tabled last evening—I had about an hour to make up my mind and to undertake the difficult task of deciding on the business to be taken. Your Lordships know that my office takes enormous trouble to table business to suit all those involved. We now publish provisional business—I emphasise "provisional"—three weeks ahead.
	In the situation that I faced yesterday, the normal arrangements could not apply, but we tried very hard in difficult circumstances. In Committee, on Report and at Third Reading, there will be opportunities, if your Lordships want—I am sure that you will—to discuss those parts of the Bill that the other place did not discuss in detail.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, that what he said was nonsense. It was unworthy of him and I would be grateful to him if he would withdraw what he said. Yesterday evening I took the decision to table this Bill. I did not look at the votes list to see who had voted. I did not know that the noble Lords, Lord Rogan and Lord Laird, had voted against the Government. The noble Lord is nodding. Is he calling me a liar? I did not know how the noble Lords, Lord Rogan and Lord Laird, had voted.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way?

Lord Carter: My Lords, of course.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, this morning it was reported to me that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, had named two Ulster Unionist Peers as having voted against the Government and that that was one of the reasons why the debate was being held tomorrow.

Lord Carter: My Lords, that is nonsense. I took the decision yesterday evening. To be perfectly honest, last evening I was much more interested in looking at those who had voted for the Government. It was only this morning, when I came in, and looked at the other list—I had already taken the decision and the Bill was already on the Order Paper—that I discovered how the noble Lords, Lord Rogan and Lord Laird, had voted. That could not have been a part of my decision last evening. When the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, came to see me, I pointed out that those who had voted against the Government had produced this situation. The noble Lords, Lord Rogan and Lord Laird, were two of those who voted against the Government.
	In fact, I did not intend to mention that matter in this statement, but I have done so as the noble Lord has raised it. I ask him now to withdraw any imputation that the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill was placed on the Order Paper as a result of the votes of the noble Lords, Lord Rogan and Lord Laird.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, I have heard the explanation given by the member of the Government. I have another source—the persons who met you this morning. I shall check with them before I make any further statement on this matter.

Lord Carter: My Lords, if the noble Lord does not mind my saying so, that says a lot more about him than it says about me. I do not believe that I can say any more on the matter. I am extremely sorry for the inconvenience that has been caused. It is not a happy situation. I have not faced such a situation before in the five Sessions during which I have been Chief Whip. Yesterday's decision was virtually unprecedented.
	In response to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, we are now considering how we can proceed with an extremely important Bill that, for this Session, may have been killed. We do not yet know. It would be wrong for me to say any more until I have had a full discussion with my departmental colleagues and decided how best to proceed.
	I ask the House to take my good faith on trust. This situation has nothing to do with Northern Ireland, or the situation there. I had to fill a gap very quickly. The Bill that I had in mind originally was the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill and that is why it was tabled.

Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I think that it is very sad that the House has involved itself in rancour about this matter. I simply ask the Government Chief Whip why, as this has happened, we have to sit tomorrow because you are, after all, getting two free days?

Lord Glentoran: Five.

Baroness O'Cathain: Is it five days? I just ask that question as a simple lay person who gets involved in time management. It seems to me that it would take all the heat out of the situation. The noble Lords who are Ulster Unionists would be able to prepare their speeches, as indeed would the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton; and I should be able to take part, whereas tomorrow I shall not be here.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I dissociate myself wholly from any attack upon the integrity of the noble Lord, Lord Carter. He found himself in a very difficult position. But there is another side to the issue. The Bill is very important. Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday. We cannot do justice to its merits and importance. I beg the noble Lord to say, "Go on your way; have no business; and a happy Easter".

Lord Carter: My Lords, I must say to the noble Lord that all Bills in front of the House are important. Whatever Bill we debated tomorrow would be important. We have not yet saved five days. We are still considering whether there is any way in which we might be able to take the Bill forward this Session. It may not be possible. But it would be wrong to assume that I have saved five days.
	The programme is crowded as always. I have lost two days of government business—both yesterday and tomorrow. It seemed reasonable to continue the public business with a government Bill rather than just to call off the day. In fact there are some extremely important orders that must be considered tomorrow.
	I must inform your Lordships that if the House takes a decision that removes two days from the programme at 24 hours' notice my responsibility as the Government Chief Whip is to get the programme through. That is my first responsibility to the Prime Minister and to the Government. That is what I intend to do.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, perhaps I may help the noble Lord. We all understand the difficulty in which he found himself. It was not an easy matter to have to cope with. Does he agree with my noble friend Lady O'Cathain? One could continue with the business as it is. I was told only a short while ago that the business tomorrow is likely to last two hours. If tomorrow were to be removed from the Order Paper, all right, everyone would have got off a day earlier, but one could still carry on this business in an ordered way after the recess. No one would have lost any face at all.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, with the leave of the House and on reflection I want to withdraw what I said. I have listened to what the noble Lord said. I accept what he says. It is, however, I must make clear, contrary to what I was told this morning. That is why I made the comment in the first place. Having withdrawn that comment and accepted what the noble Lord said, I ask if he will not reconsider his decision to have this major debate tomorrow, which all parties—the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives and many from Northern Ireland of both nationalist and unionist backgrounds—agree should be held on another date.

Lord Carter: My Lords, I do not know whether at such short notice we can change the Order Paper yet again. I do not wish to raise the hopes of the House in any way at all. I shall consider all that has been said. At the moment I have not heard anything that persuades me to change my mind that we should not debate this important Bill tomorrow.

Business of the House: Debates this Day

Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Patten set down for today shall be limited to two hours and that in the name of the Lord Elton to three hours.—(Lord Williams of Mostyn.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee

Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Normally, this kind of Motion would be very much a formality, but I think that noble Lords would wish me to take the opportunity to offer the thanks of the House to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, for his excellent chairmanship of this important committee. He took it over from the late lamented Lord Rippon of Hexham. There is no doubt that he has helped the committee to grow in stature. It is now one of the most important committees of this House.
	It is significant that, in producing some 200 reports, the committee has, most importantly, managed to do that in such a way that the Government have accepted almost all its recommendations over the period of its existence. I certainly feel that the House would wish to give thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, and, indeed, to the rest of the committee. We look forward to the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf.
	Moved, That the Lord Dahrendorf be appointed a member of the Select Committee in the place of the Lord Alexander of Weedon, and that he be appointed chairman thereof.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I echo what the Chairman of Committees has said; first, in congratulating my noble friend Lord Alexander of Weedon on the work that he has done over many years in chairing the committee. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I remind the House of something which the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said. Under my noble friend's chairmanship, the committee has also followed through the convention—and it has now become very much a convention—that the Government accept the advice given by that committee. That is also to commend this Government on having the wisdom to do so. I have every confidence that under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, that convention will continue over the foreseeable future.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I add the voice of these Benches. When I first came into this House I was unaware of how crucial the Select Committee was through its work on delegated legislation. I have come to believe it to be one of the foundation stones of our unwritten constitution. From these Benches I should also like to put on record our extraordinary appreciation of the work done by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon.
	Those of us who know the clarity and subtlety of the mind of my noble friend Lord Dahrendorf believe him to be an extremely worthy successor. We are delighted that he should follow in the footsteps of such a remarkable achievement as that of the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Government Policy

Lord Patten: rose to call attention to the political philosophy underlying Her Majesty's Government's development and delivery of public policy; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, I am glad of the opportunity given to me to beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I do so not as a philosopher in any sense at all—not a proper philosopher like my noble friend Lord Quinton and other Members of your Lordships' House—but because I am interested in matters that underpin the governing party's own ideas and policies. With respect, I can find no evidence whatever of there being any present alive, extant political philosophy underlying new Labour's development and delivery of public policy.
	I can see that a few of your Lordships' philosophical tendency are gathered here today to join me in discussing these issues. Perhaps I may say that I am a little saddened that no one is to speak, so far as I can see thus far, from the Labour Back Benches on these issues. We do not have, either, the benefit of the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who I am told thinks "blue skies" thoughts on behalf of No. 10 Downing Street, to guide us.
	However, I am extremely happy that the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, is in his place. He has a great reputation as a "Minister about town" and before that as a businessman and media tycoon of great success. I see that he is now adding to his already considerable list of achievements; that of having taken over as the Government's political philosopher in residence in this House. I look forward very much to what he has to say.
	My text for this debate is fairly simple. It is that when a government stop thinking, generally speaking, terminal decline sets in. That is what I put before your Lordships today. I can well understand that when things are going extremely well—as they were for the Government after 1997, with a huge majority and a considerable burst of popularity—the idea of underlying philosophies, thinking in concepts and so on is rather relegated to the sidelines. It is a rather unnecessary encumbrance—simply get on with the business of governing and be successful.
	The problem is that when trouble sets in, as trouble is so clearly setting in "big time" for the present Labour Government, a great many people—queues of Labour MPs—go on to the media and ask, "What does new Labour stand for?" Without an underpinning of belief or conviction, it is hard for the Government to find something on which to fall back to drive their future agenda. That is why I believe that this debate is important, and why I am so glad that so many of my noble friends are here.
	A little history first, as the Michelin guides still say. New Labour's last thinking period seemed to end before 1997, when it had borrowed all the bits of Conservative ideology that suited it—free markets and all the rest. That was politically astute; it was also shameless although a little political cover was sought and spun with the borrowing of some pseudo-philosophical branding from that great global political thinker, Bill Clinton. Thus was the third way imported into the United Kingdom and Labour Party philosophy—now the third way of blessed memory. Pretty quickly, however, amid the excitement of near total power for new Labour post-1997, the third way was unceremoniously dropped overboard, unwanted on voyage any more.
	By October 2000, when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, then the Government's political philosopher in this place, answered an Unstarred Question of mine about the Government's assessment of their progress on their third way policies, the best that he could do was to direct me to the Government's annual report for 1999-2000. I did as I was told, but I found that it was a complete and utter third way-free zone—that term was not mentioned.
	That only substantiated what the Library told me on 24th October 2000:
	"Broadly speaking, there has been a decline in the Government's references to the Third Way ... over the last two years the Third Way has appeared infrequently in discussions of Government policy".
	So what does drive the Government? That is what interests so many of us in so many ways. In preparation for this debate, some 18 months after I received the last letter from our ever-excellent Library, I turned to it again. On 21st March, it wrote:
	"There has been very little mention of the Third Way since October 2000".
	The third way is clearly not just resting, it is dead and buried in some unmarked grave in the Cabinet Office. I should be grateful if the Minister would specifically confirm that in his speech. Will he confirm that the third way is no more?
	What has taken the place of the third way? What is now the Government's philosophical lodestone? Naturally enough, I turn to what the Prime Minister has said in another place and outside about his political and philosophical beliefs bang up to date—in 2002. There were no such statements in January.
	In February, however, there was an absolute collector's item. On 27th February, one of his own Back-Benchers asked during Prime Minister's Questions:
	"Will he provide the House with a brief characterisation of the political philosophy that he espouses and which underlies his policies?".
	Before he asked that Question, he gave due notice to the Prime Minister. So that Labour Member of Parliament used much the same words as those of my Motion. I think that your Lordships will find it hard to believe the Answer that the Prime Minister gave to Mr Tony McWalter. He said:
	"The best example I can give is the rebuilding of the national health service today under this Government ... For example, there is the appointment today of Sir Magdi Yacoub to head up the fellowship scheme that will allow internationally acclaimed surgeons and consultants from around the world to work in this country".—[Official Report, Commons, 27/2/02; col. 698.]
	Well, that is all right then. That is the Prime Minister's philosophical creed. No wonder that he was widely reported as having been stumped by that question, the contents of which he had previously been made aware of by Mr McWalter. Heaven only knows how he might have answered had he been caught unprepared. Perhaps Magdi Yacoub might have turned from heart transplants to convictions transplants to help the Government to identify what they stood for.
	I am afraid that I must trouble your Lordships with one more offering—this month's offering. On 12th March, the Prime Minister set out his new vision to an audience of somewhat bemused academics at the London School of Economics. Perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who I am delighted is speaking in the debate, was among their number. That was an occasion for "goodbye the third way", because it was not mentioned at all, and "welcome" something called the third phase. But do not get too excited, hold up the transcript of that speech to the light—and many commentators did exactly that—and it is impossible to discover from close textual analysis exactly what that phrase means.
	I pick about the kindest of the comments made in the following day's press. It came in a leader in the Financial Times—all the more remarkable because that newspaper has often been editorially sympathetic to new Labour since 1997. The leader article sat underneath the sub-heading, "Blah, blah Blair". It began:
	"There are few spectacles quite so sad in politics as that of Tony Blair trying to explain what New Labour stands for five years after coming to power".
	Those are just the kindest of sentiments in the Financial Times and my natural generosity and charitable nature prevent me reading any further—it would be too painful. But no one was any the wiser as to what "the third phase" actually meant.
	I must ask the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, a second question. Is the third phase the fourth way of the second term, or what exactly is it? We look to the noble Lord to tell us, although I am sure that he has received input from the 81 special advisers across government and his colleagues in that ever-burgeoning enterprise at the heart of our state, the Cabinet Office.
	On all the evidence, it seems that there is a parched ideological desert at the heart of new Labour these days. That conviction-free zone is like one of those areas where medieval cartographers used to inscribe, "Here be dragons", but today could be labelled only, "Here be nothing". At best, new Labour's slogan might be, "Rich in spin, light in substance". Not that slogans are to be decried. Labour now eschews ideas and convictions and substitutes pragmatism. I expect that we shall hear from the Minister, who is a pretty pragmatic person by background, "We just get on with the job. If it works, we do it". I suspect that we shall hear that pleaded in mitigation by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald.
	If so, the Government will get themselves into even greater difficulty. For on the Front Bench is my noble friend Lord Saatchi, who is credited with that masterly slogan coined in the period of old Labour's great unemployment creation in the run-up to the 1979 general election: "Labour isn't working". That is a tip-top phrase. Thanks to the deep-seated Conservative labour market and trades union reforms of the 1980s, which took until the mid-1990s to work through the system, and on which most of our European partners have not even begun, we no longer have such levels of unemployment in this country. But my view is, never throw away a good phrase, never dispose of a decent slogan. The slogan, "Labour isn't working", coined by my noble friend, remains of considerable utility. It is as relevant to new Labour today as it was to old Labour in the 1970s.
	I submit that, barren of any underpinning of ideas, empty of political convictions—not personal but political convictions—new Labour fails to deliver because of that emptiness. Neither the social nor the physical infrastructure of the Government is working. Before I finish, I shall give a couple of quick examples. On the social infrastructure, last weekend's poll showed that no longer does the nation think that the National Health Service is working. About two-thirds of respondents thought that, even if the Government produced more money and put it into the health service, Labour could not make the National Health Service work any better. In other words, things can only get worse. The Government have no ideas about how to make the health service work, unlike my right honourable friend Mr Duncan Smith and our health spokesman, Dr Fox.
	Exactly the same could be said about law and order. Street crime is a growing national pastime and social disintegration is spreading through some of our inner cities. The same could be said of our countryside, where new Labour is hot on the heels of the life and activities of the rural minority. Labour is bent on destroying the historic ties that have bound the two nations—town and country—together time out of mind in the United Kingdom.
	If Labour's social infrastructure is breaking down before our eyes, so is its physical infrastructure. I shall not labour the point on the breakdown of our transport system—I profoundly wish that the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, were in charge of it at the moment—including the failed attempts to get our trains to run on time and reduce crowding on the Tube. It is the same with the built environment. We are seeing the concreting of Britain. Once again, new Labour is simply not working.
	It surprises me how it has all crept up on us. The people who seemed, before Christmas, to walk on political water are now in it up to their neck and getting in deeper. Such is the price that a governing party pays for having no convictions, no underlying beliefs and no political philosophy. Instead, new Labour is driven this way and that by every passing wind, in the notable phrase used by my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell to describe the right honourable Neil Kinnock. It is just as apposite today to Her Majesty's Government as it was in those days.
	The Government are driven by every new headline. One cannot govern by launching a new initiative to meet a new headline or holding a No. 10 summit to deal with the next crisis. Last weekend, a Labour Back-Bencher was reported as saying that he "felt like a mushroom". He said that he was kept in the dark and did not know what was going on. We are all mushrooms now; we are all completely in the dark about the Labour Party's underpinning philosophy. There is a barren emptiness at the heart of Labour. It has been there for a long time.
	The first quarter of 2002 will be the time when one can safely call the top of the market in Blairism in this country. It marks the point at which new Labour, driven by events, not by conviction or thinking, begins its inexorable decline. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for introducing this timely debate. I had the unworthy thought that he had acted with mischievous intent, but I quickly recalled that, when he was a Minister, he rightly saw the need for regular statements and restatements of party policy in the light of changing circumstances. That is to say that he understood the need for principles to be reformulated as the basis for future policy. He contributed to that necessary, continuing dialogue by publishing in 1993 Rolling Constitutional Change both in Citizenship and the wider issue of Constitutional Reform. That was the short title. He has strong credentials for initiating the debate.
	I doubt that noble Lords, as earnest seekers after truth, will get far towards discovering what is new Labour's operating philosophy. Two years ago, the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, in a brilliantly satirical piece in Granta, sought to discover the origins, meaning and substance of the widely proclaimed third way. Despite his forensic skills and endeavours, he had to admit total failure. It is unlikely that we will be any more successful today.
	I must confess that my views are deeply coloured by the stark fact that so many present Ministers began their political life on the Left and are now to be seen happily ensconced on the Right. It is fashionable to say—doubtless, the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, will say it—that those traditional categories no longer apply in the post-modern world. However, they still have their heuristic uses. The Labour Party, it is true, has often witnessed its more promising members stride boldly up the left-hand staircase, tiptoe across the landing and eagerly slide down the right-hand banisters—all without a blush to their cheeks. It gave rise to that well known tune with words to the effect that, "The working class can genuflect before me, I've got the foreman's job at last". A more appropriate libretto to match those traditional sentiments to the aspirations and achievements of today's Labour tyros would be rendered by substituting "the foreman's job" with "the chief executive's job and corresponding fat cat emoluments".
	It is all part of the revolution of rising expectations, which could not be better exemplified than by the political odyssey of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, who, I am pleased to see, will reply on behalf of the Government. When I first knew him, he was a feisty Trotskyite activist and an intrepid investigative television reporter. Since then, he has become a television mogul and is now a Minister in the Cabinet Office, ostensibly in the very powerhouse of government. He is thus especially qualified to expatiate on the philosophy behind new Labour, in terms of his personal travels and as an authoritative elucidator of the Government's core beliefs. Your Lordships' House is, thus, doubly privileged today.
	I fear for the immortal political souls of those who make such dramatic ideological U-turns. Indeed, I faxed Saint Peter for advice. The celestial Official Secrets Act is, of course, the most robust and transparent of all. I asked the saint what such politicians could say at the pearly gates to explain the total abandonment of their earlier beliefs in favour of naked expediency. He replied, "It is an almost impossible task for them to offer any justification. The normal tariff is 100 million years in Hell. Up here, we are tough on political sin and even tougher on the causes of political sin". I trembled but thought that a confession in today's debate would, perhaps, obtain, by way of mitigation, some remission in the length of the inevitable fate that awaits.
	It is clear that there is no overarching organising idea that informs the Government's actions on public policy. From time to time, there are hints of Christian democratic impulses, but even they have waned on the mainland of Europe, where they originated. That is especially so in Italy, now governed by Signor Silvio Berlusconi, the new-found friend of Tony Blair. Then again, Ministers frequently place emphasis on trust and plead that they should be trusted. I am sure that they should be trusted with the stewardship of government, but, when it comes to specific policies, they should seek to gain support for them by the strength of their arguments. Blind trust is not an appropriate tactic in a mature democracy. The Government are too prone to plead for trust, rather than use persuasive argument.
	That brings me to one of the central planks of government policy, consideration of which may make it possible to tease out some of the motives behind government thinking. I refer, of course, to the relentless pursuit of public/private partnerships, which the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, has promoted in the House, for example in the part privatisation of National Air Traffic Services.
	PPPs are, in too many respects, flawed vehicles. As Select Committees in the other place repeatedly state, they represent poor value for money, and the public pays through the nose. The Tube and the extension of the Eurotunnel link to King's Cross demonstrate that. Secondly, when fat profits are made, they are taken by the private partners; when losses are sustained, they are paid by the taxpayer. Despite the noble Lord's undertaking, that happened most recently in the case of National Air Traffic Services. Thirdly, there is an almost complete lack of transparency and public accountability about PPP schemes. It is of particular concern that, time and again, commercial confidentiality is employed tactically to prevent the details of proposed schemes being scrutinised by local councillors, non-executive directors of hospital trusts, school governing bodies and similar organisations, in whose names the contracts are negotiated and who have responsibility for those contracts.
	Fourthly, the initial costs of tendering are astronomic: £27 million of taxpayers' money in the case of the first NHS PPP schemes alone; and equally worrying is the fact that cost estimates tend to be revised upwards after the initial tendering negotiations are closed.
	Fifthly, the Treasury performs an ambiguous role. As champion of the whole process, it advises on the tendering process and it is the principal agent in the later value-for-money assessment which it invariably accepts, not surprisingly, as it has earlier advised on the preferred bidder's tender. The whole operation is far too incestuous.
	Sixthly, how will contract compliance be effectively monitored over a prolonged period of up to 30 years? What happens if a contractor becomes bankrupt or falls short of its obligations? Such failures would have to be bailed out from public funds.
	Seventhly, and most relevantly to this debate, is the ideological stance taken by the Government regarding PPPs. Like Mrs Thatcher before them, they claim, "There is no alternative", in pursuance of which they adamantly refuse to consider any other options for funding public services or infrastructure, which are demonstrably cheaper, such as the issue of bonds, as my noble friend Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay has argued. To dismiss all opposition to PPPs as being ideologically motivated when Ministers assert that there is no alternative to them is itself ideological or, more accurately, the mere incantation of a mantra.
	Public/private partnerships aim to get the costs of new projects off the Government's balance sheet. It was that dodgy accountancy practice that was used by Enron. As I said during the passage of the Air Traffic Control Bill, it was based on De Lorean book-keeping. PPP as a device has few supporters outside government. There has been unanimous condemnation in the press and in the reports of Select Committees from another place. There is widespread unease in the Labour Party and outright criticism by the trade unions. Even William Hague conceded that PPPs were not appropriate for London Underground. That was significant, bearing in mind that PPPs, as the private finance initiative, were originally conceived by the Major government. As with so many ideas, new Labour, as Thatcherism Mark II, extended them.
	PPPs as the only practical manifestation of the so-called third way, reveal their lack of accountability and their excessive costs, the paucity of real coherent thinking as opposed to accountancy legerdemain in the development of the Government's policies. There is no effective philosophy underpinning this Government's actions.

Business of the House: Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill

Lord Carter: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the debate extremely briefly. I earlier promised the House that I would reflect on the points raised by a number of noble Lords on the timing of the Second Reading of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill. Having reflected further—and I am extremely grateful for the co-operation of the usual channels—I am now in a position to make a further suggestion. If the House would find it more convenient, the usual channels have agreed that we should sit on Friday 3rd May to take the Second Reading.
	I should make it clear that the House will sit tomorrow. As I mentioned earlier, Starred Questions have been tabled and a number of important orders await your Lordships' consideration. I believe that some of the orders must be cleared before Easter.
	I hope that your Lordships will find that an agreeable arrangement and that it will assist colleagues from Northern Ireland who, I now discover, would have had great difficulty with their travel arrangements tomorrow.

Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, that is a wise and correct decision and the House will appreciate it. I am grateful to the Chief Whip for his co-operation in this matter. As he said, travel arrangements are particularly difficult to make just before Easter and it was impossible for people to change those arrangements to Northern Ireland. That factor also entered into the decision.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, I want to thank the Chief Whip for that decision. Clearly, he has reflected on what everyone said and his decision will be well received by the Ulster Unionists and people throughout Northern Ireland.

Lord Roper: My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the fact that the Chief Whip has had a chance to reconsider the matter. I believe that the proposals he has made will be for the convenience of Members from all parts of the House in order that we can have a proper and useful debate on a most serious and important Bill.

Government Policy

Debate resumed.

Lord Alexander of Weedon: My Lords, perhaps I may preface my remarks on the debate by saying that the Delegated Powers Committee has considered the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill. It is a long Bill and I am pleased to hear the decision that has been taken. It also gives me the opportunity to thank noble Lords for the somewhat over-generous words about my contribution to the committee, although no one could be over-generous to the committee as a whole. Furthermore, in the light of what has passed today I want to say how much I have always appreciated the support which we have received from the Government Chief Whip on all occasions.
	It is fitting that this debate has been introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Patten. In 1995, he wrote his stylish and thoughtful book, Things to Come. In it, he made an eloquent appeal that clear ideas and a clearer agenda, underpinned by a sense of history and philosophy, are critical to any party which wishes to do good by holding power. I find it heartening that after the barren and desolate winter of the previous Parliament, we Conservatives are beginning again to think intelligently. It is even more heartening that we are nailing our colours to the one-nation banner. We are recognising that there is such a thing as society; that we must be inclusive; that we must promote excellence in public services; and that we must recognise the value of cultural diversity. Obviously, there is far to go to make good policies in this area and to carry credibility, but it is immensely heartening that the route has been opened up for the future in a way that will make many of us feel comfortable.
	One theme of the noble Lord's book today captures a resonance probably greater than when it was written. He drew on the Papal encyclical of 1931 of Pope Pius XI who emphasised that the task of the state was to create a framework within which smaller societies could function. He coined the word that has been adopted by and will forever be associated with the European Union, "subsidiarity". As the noble Lord, Lord Patten, put it, the state should do as little as possible as well as possible. While that may be a counsel of perfection in the modern era, it is in my view true that the state should content itself with the creation of a framework for action, with acting as a catalyst and with the allocation of public resources.
	All those are legitimate judgments for politicians. But the state, as far as possible, should withdraw from management and it certainly should not micro-manage. Examples of that do not need to be laboured. One has only to mention the Dome and Railtrack to make the point. It is sad that the Government continue to go down that route with the misguided centralisation of policing which is at the heart of the present police Bill. I believe that we should diffuse responsibility outwards, as the Government to their credit—although I am not sure that my party supports them—have done with the regional development agencies which bring, as the Confederation of British Industry has said, the value of business-led boards.
	I want to concentrate not on what Cardinal Newman might have called the "grand design", but on his words,
	"One step enough for me".
	I do not want to look at the great sweep of philosophy but I do want to look at the value we place on two aspects which underpin political philosophy: civil liberties and true democracy. I do so because, listening as a spectator to the debate on fox hunting, I believe that those aspects will loom large over the next year.
	I do not seek to debate fox hunting in any detail. I have no axe to grind in favour of the sport. I happen to dislike the idea of chasing animals for sport, but then I would not want to persecute innocent birds with a shotgun or cause a fish to writhe on the end of a hook. But I am ever more concerned about the sheer failure, as I see it, of the Government to realise that the course on which they are set tramples on the liberties of those who disagree with them. It will affect the livelihoods of around 500,000 people.
	I believe that criminalisation in this area could be warranted only by overwhelming justification. After all, most of our criminal law has at its root the protection of others from harm: assault, theft, criminal damage; even environmental, health and safety regulation. All that law is designed to protect people. There is of course an additional category of offences where the law aims to protect the state: treason, riot and offences against the Official Secrets Act. But the essence of criminal law is that it tries to balance individual liberty. As the great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes said some 150 years ago:
	"The right to swing my fist stops where the other man's nose begins".
	It seems to me that we ought to remember that. We should show tolerance and respect for the views of others in this area.
	I believe that before the classes of offence which already exist for causing cruelty to animals are extended, this issue should be very carefully tested for proportionality. Is the concern that fox hunting compromises the welfare of the fox—I quote from the noble Lord, Lord Burns—such a powerful consideration as to warrant cutting a swathe through the economic and social liberties of so many?
	I am bound to say that I find it disproportionate. I am bound to say too that when I read about the baying of the hounds in the House of Commons last week, I found echoes of the old mantra of class prejudice. I hope that the issue will be debated as one of liberty and principle and I hope that we will remember the words of John Kennedy, months before his assassination:
	"The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened".
	I believe that we should tread gingerly in this area.
	I have another and perhaps more controversial concern in this area: I am troubled by the claim that the Government will be giving weight to the democratic will. I find this hollow for two reasons. This House is a part of our system of parliamentary accountability. It has recently been reformed. It is not our fault that the Government are delaying further change and are unenthusiastic about further increasing our influence or, for that matter, creating a largely elected Chamber. As the Public Administration Select Committee, one of the best committees in Parliament, has said:
	"Reform is not a zero sum game in which advance for one Chamber is inevitably a threat to the other".
	In the short time left I also want to canvass my concern about the suggestion that the House of Commons is democratically elected. That suggestion is made glibly. It is untrue and cannot carry weight when 44 per cent of those who vote elect a government with a majority of 180. This is not a party political point; it happened when the Conservatives were in power and it now happens to Labour. In addition, there is what is called "bias" in the system; that is, fewer votes are needed to elect a Labour Member than are needed for a Conservative Member. This bias means that if, at the last election, the two major parties had each won 37 per cent of the vote, Labour would have had a majority of 140. If, at the last election, the Conservatives had won 42 per cent, as Labour did, they would have had a majority of only 15.
	I was a member of the Jenkins commission on voting reform. We recommended a degree of proportionality. We believe that it is fair to the electorate. Of course political parties—I fear that my own party is for some reason not yet thinking in this area—all say, "We want the smack of strong government. We want the opportunity to pull the fruit machine occasionally and to hit the jackpot, thus having a 'winner takes all'". I think that we ought to stand back and ask, "What is fair and equitable to the electorate?". When we look at that question, we should hesitate before we say that there is a clear, democratically elected majority.
	I ask whether the Minister, as a good Scot, supports the system of election that is in place in Scotland for the Scottish Parliament. If he does support it, why would it not do for the United Kingdom Parliament? More immediately, why would it not do for elected Members of the House of Lords? We have to underpin our democracy if we are going to sustain political philosophy.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, in following my noble friend Lord Alexander, the happiest compliment that I can pay to a president of the MCC is to include a reference to cricket in my speech, which might otherwise not be forgiven. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Patten on having introduced this perfectly admirable debate, and I join my noble friend in regretting that, apart from the noble Lord who is to reply, speakers from the Government Benches have decided that discretion is the better part of valour.
	Some years ago in my constituency the late T.S. Eliot got into a taxi cab and the driver said to him over his shoulder, "You're that Mr Eliot, aren't you?". Eliot replied that he was. The driver then said, "I have lots of important people in my cab. Only the other day I had that Bertrand Russell in here, sitting just where you are now. I was talking to him over my shoulder, just as I am to you. I said to him, 'What's it all about, then?'. Do you know, he couldn't tell me". The late Bertrand Russell is of course the former noble kinsman of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who is to speak for the Liberal Democrats. I particularly look forward to what he has to say.
	My noble friend Lord Patten referred to the Questions put by Professor McWalter to the Prime Minister. Professor McWalter is a professional philosopher and his Questions are therefore better than those which I asked in the previous Parliament about Blairism. However, I regard myself as a modest harbinger of this inquiry. It is notable that, in answering me, the Prime Minister spoke about "winning", but in answering Professor McWalter, he referred to "doing". Perhaps that marks a significant shift and change of gear in the Government.
	There is a notable pedigree of socialist philosophers down the years. We have always been assured that Methodism has prevailed over Marxism in Labour thinking, although I am bound to say, in the light of the news yesterday with regard to gambling, that the Methodist influence appears to be weakening. I do not claim any pellucid or transparent currency among practising politicians or political thinkers, regardless of party, and that collectively we are all, in the words of Warden Spooner's famous text,
	"but as clay in the pods of the hatter".
	In discoursing on the shift in Labour philosophy, I exclude the Calvinist stances of both the present Chancellor of the Exchequer and the late John Smith's constitutional legacy. In a world where, if you do not know where you are trying to go then any road will get you there, they had thought clearly in opposition about where they were seeking to go and what they were seeking to do. After 1997, it showed. But between 1992 and 1997, the series of shadow secretaries we had in department after department precluded any serious opportunity for joined-up thinking in terms of Labour's preparation for power. But I do acquit the Chancellor of the Exchequer from joining in that old philosophical drinking song, "Let auld Aquinas be forgot". However, as I have said, in other areas, that did not apply.
	I also exclude the principle and policy of inclusivity from what I am saying. That was clearly stolen from the One Nation Tories when they were bathing, or perhaps more precisely, when they were taking a bath. Essentially, however, the Labour Party also stole pragmatism. Now "What works"—overlaid, I have to say, with the embroidery of "what Tony wants"—is the banner headline of the Government's public posture. The special advisers are the agents of "what Tony wants".
	I declare an interest in that I am conscious of the recent references to the pay of special advisers. When I was in the Treasury, I was the Minister who set up the arrangements for paying special advisers. It is not the subject of today's debate and I do not propose to utter it, but I served in four departments and, as a consequence, I have a fairly wide acquaintance and friendship with civil servants across the whole of Whitehall. I am struck, sadly, by the number of civil servants who were particularly good in the areas of delivery who are bailing out of a Civil Service career because of the extent of oversight to which they are subjected by special advisers who want to make sure that the political slant is as they would wish it to be. They may well provide delivery elsewhere on a sub-contracted basis but it is sad that they are leaving the Civil Service.
	On the general structure of Whitehall delivery, I do not know who likened the present structure of Whitehall to Gormenghast but I should dearly like to shake his hand. It struck me as a most remarkable image. If Gormenghast is to be the measure, there is a genuine problem. If I may make my cricketing reference, it was always said of Denis Compton that if he called you for a run it was not so much an instruction as the opening of negotiations. Gormenghast is clearly responsive to instructions. It is more questionable whether it is susceptible to the deep and prolonged negotiations which take place in Whitehall in order to produce sensible policy. I fear that that is beginning to show in terms of what is going on around us.
	What works only works if it does work. In the early 1950s in the course of a week, The Times announced on Monday the publication by Faber and Faber at two guineas of the collected works of Mr Wallace Stevens, a distinguished American poet. On Tuesday it announced the death of Mr Wallace Stevens. On Friday it began its leading article in The Times Literary Supplement with the words,
	"This has been a good year for Mr Wallace Stevens".
	That particular concatenation seems to me to be beginning to surround and embrace the Government for it is self-evidently not working. I can only assume that pragmatism based on that great tradition of British empiricism may not work except with dedicated practice.
	A great argument for policy is that it provides prefabricated decisions. But if the prefabricated decisions begin to go wrong and the policy did not have an original philosophical basis, then any government would have difficulty in knowing where to go next or instead. Professor Joad, as he then was not, sat the entrance examination at Balliol and was required to write for three hours on the question, "Can a good man be happy on the rack?" He wrote for a minute and a half the single sentence: "If he were a very good man and it were a very bad rack, yes; if not, no". If that observation is applied to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister is patently, both descriptively and evaluatively, a very good man. What we are discussing in this debate is the quality of the rack. Whatever verdict we reach on it, we can recognise from the questions which Professor McWalter put more substantially—and I more modestly—and the answers we received that whatever kind of rack it is, it is a rack of the Prime Minister's own choosing.

Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, in order to test the proposition that confession is good for the soul I shall start with a couple of modest admissions. First, to my Right-wing friends I confess that five years ago in the debate on the Queen's Speech—it was the first of the new government—I offered warm congratulations to new Labour on forming their first administration. Secondly, to my Left-wing friends, I further confess that my chief reason for supporting Mr Blair was his explicit commitment to what he called "a dynamic market economy". I had to be enthusiastic about that because 40 years earlier, in 1957, a handful of the awkward squad, mostly grammar school boys from Oxford, Cambridge and the LSE, helped to set up the Institute of Economic Affairs of which I was the first general director, a position I held for 30 years. Our innocent purpose was to question the post-war all-party consensus then known at Butskellism. Our guiding philosophy was that of classical economic liberalism, of which there is fairly extensive literature, to which we added considerably.
	We had much fun pricking the fashionable folly of inflationary finance, voluntary and statutory incomes policies, make-believe indicative planning, bloated state industries and taxation on incomes rising at one time to 98 per cent. Ailing Britain had become a menagerie of lame ducks, sacred cows, nationalised dinosaurs and TUC pit bull terriers.
	If the IEA set out to demolish one consensus—that of Keynesian collectivism—our serious hope was to restore an earlier consensus when both the great parties of state broadly acknowledged the market economy as the indispensable foundation for a free, prosperous and progressive society. In the 1980s the old mould was famously broken by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, whose voice may now be stilled but whose historic legacy will long stand as a beacon around the world. She had the courage to transform the Tory Party and embark on a sustained programme of radical economic reform which owed some debt to the tenets of classical liberalism. As a result she rendered the Labour Party unelectable.
	When Mr Blair, with, in my view, equal courage, proclaimed the death of Clause 4 on public ownership he prepared the ground for the third way. This amounted to an unwritten compact that old Labour and its union backers would desist from frightening the voters by abandoning the class war, giving up nationalisation and burying their anti-business vendetta. In return, new Labour would exploit the resulting prosperity for broad social rather than outright socialist purposes. That was the essence of the third way. There was never any coherent economic or political philosophy behind it. It was simply a deal to bury old-fashioned socialism and proclaim a new era of something called "social justice", although Hayek had long warned that social justice has neither clear meaning nor any finite limits.
	Even if Mr Blair, in boy scout mode, was unworldly enough to think that such an unwritten contract would stick, the Treasury was not so nai ve. It grasped the danger that unrestrained social spending would simply reignite the old spectre of inflation. Hence the Chancellor of the Exchequer's bold decision on the morrow of the 1997 election privily to re-privatise the Bank of England by handing it back control over monetary policy. This decision to abdicate power over interest rates to the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee is, I believe, the single indisputable economic achievement of new Labour. Having inherited a stable economic framework from the Tories, new Labour has presided over an inflation of never more than 2.5 per cent—a rate, let it be noted, that would still reduce the value of the pound over a full lifetime to only 12 pence. Nevertheless, the central significance of this wheeze was that it shifted money safely beyond the reach of erratic party politicians. Alas, the fatal contrast is that in almost every other aspect of public policy—health, education, transport, pensions and so on—new Labour has extended and intensified the palsied grip of those very same party politicians.
	One of the more distinguished Nobel Laureates in economics, an American called Professor James Buchanan of George Mason University, summed up recently the democratic delusion when he wrote that,
	"philosophers, practitioners and the public have lost all sense of the limits of politics".
	He observed that in recent years,
	"the state has been pushed beyond its capabilities".
	This is certainly no narrow party political point. Today's Tories, and even the Liberal Democrats, whom the late Lord Beloff described as the "Peculiar Liberals", are hardly less prone to the absurd folie de grandeur of unlimited government. But hyperactive new Labour, like the restless interventionists in Brussels, are positively obsessed with extending their power over the citizenry. They boast of their good intentions and talk only of the public interest. But I believe it was Oscar Wilde who mocked this over-blown concept of government as,
	"Bludgeoning the people in the name of the people".
	It is true, I believe, that Mr Blair is a bit of a dreamer. But we should at least acknowledge the rare qualities he brought to high office five years ago—his courage, integrity and undoubted intelligence. I might impartially apply much the same tribute to Mr Ian Duncan Smith. Why, then, this sad decline in the Prime Minister's standing? I am convinced that the answer owes something to the diagnosis of Professor Buchanan of political over-reach or over-extended government. In non-professorial lingo, the Government have bitten off more than they can credibly digest. Yet, I reflect, if this able Prime Minister cannot make big government work, which of his colleagues do we believe might do it better?
	The dismal results are daily in evidence throughout what is grandly called "the public sector". Applying the fine words of the Anglican Confession to the Government, they, "have not done those things which they ought to have done; and they have done those things which they ought not to have done". One hundred and fifty years ago, a neglected French philosopher called Frederick Bastiat asked,
	"At what height above the rest of mankind do our rulers imagine themselves to be?"
	If new Labour cannot curb its appetite for power beyond its capabilities, might the Tories work on a more modest, discriminating, achievable agenda for government?

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Harris. He is also my noble friend because he can truly be depicted as one of the pioneers of the change in thinking and political attitudes which took place about two-thirds of the way through the last century and which have now, in one form or another and with many qualifications, become the worldwide orthodoxy of global capitalism. I am also extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Patten for giving us the opportunity to have this thoroughly enjoyable debate with its excellent speeches.
	I confess that I am uneasy about using the word "philosophy" in the same sentence as "Her Majesty's Government" or, to make a strictly non-party point, using it in the same sentence that contains reference to any major political party or government in today's circumstances. I say that because the realities of the role of government in open societies, or in any society, are changing so fast in the information age. The way in which societies behave is moving so fast that many of the theories of the philosophers and political advisers have been totally invalidated. The pace of events has left politicians and their advisers, especially their economic advisers and the whole economics discipline, far behind in understanding what is happening in our societies or indeed explaining how the world works.
	Nevertheless and despite that unease, let us look at the "philosophy" of the present Government, which is the object of the debate, something one might re-label the strategy or even the major tactic of Mr Blair and the Labour Party. That has been very clear from the moment they achieved their enormous victory in 1997—simple, courageous and correct from Labour's point of view if the aim was to end the era of Labour being unelectable. It was to move to what was conceived to be the centre ground, the middle ground, of politics, and then to carefully re-label it and re-brand it as something different from what it had been under the Conservatives. That required continual commitment to a few privatisations, which we have had. It required a number of pro-business speeches and support for enterprise, which we have had. And it had to be combined at the same time with a lot of state activism and centralism so that there emerged what we have today, a sort of half-way house. It is almost a political ginger beer shandy, half ginger beer and half beer, which is nice to drink but not very satisfying in the long run.
	That attempt to occupy what was conceived to be the centre ground was a flawed approach. We are going to see its results in due course. To cut the difference between the old state socialist inclinations and the economic liberalism espoused by Conservative governments was to confuse the centre ground with something quite different, which seems a far more desirable area for well-intentioned public figures and politicians to aim for. I refer to the new common ground ahead on which society will really feel more comfortable and address its ills.
	There is a lesson here to be drawn from the late Keith Joseph. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, will remember. Keith Joseph said again and again in the 1970s that, "We are not just going to go for the middle ground, halving the difference with our opponents yet again; we are going to define and then occupy new common ground which will appeal to and be relevant to society in a way which the past agendas of the political parties have not".
	That remains the task today. We have to redefine the new common ground which lies ahead because that is where all sensible politicians should aim. I believe that we can already see its outlines. It provides the flavour of the current political debate. There emerges from the new common ground—whether delivered by government or not is a secondary question—a satisfactory pattern of public service provision, transport provision, high levels of education, excellent health provision and a range of other services which people wish to have in this age.
	But is not that what all parties are saying? Yes, they are. But the difference between trying to find the centre ground from the common ground in which to deliver these provisions is that they will be delivered in entirely different ways. The centre ground answer to better public health, education and public services is more public investment. More state investment has become the regular cry of every political speech. But that is not the new common ground where these services will be delivered by entirely different means, many of them not central at all. Many will not be financed through taxpayer funds.
	My noble friend Lord Alexander rightly spoke about the one nation tradition. I had the privilege of being chairman of the One Nation Group in the other place for 10 years. During all that time we were not just going back to the old middle ground between Labour and Conservative; we were talking about a new common ground of one nation in which there would be a vast increase in personal ownership and the dignity that goes with it. It would be inclusive, but it would deliver up our social goals and aims in society in different ways from the old, tired methods of just more state investment or just giving the money. That was the new one nation and remains the goal of one nation today—at least I hope it does.
	Why has this not been understood by Labour or, indeed, from what I read of the purposes of the Liberal Democrats, by them? There too we hear the cry that the answer is more investment and more state spending.
	Three reasons account for what has gone wrong. First—and here I have to make what may sound like a controversial proposition but it is supported increasingly by reality—it is markets and free-market capitalism that generate social capital, not the state. The idea that the state is the source of all civil liberties and civic cohesion and inclusion belongs to the old centre ground. The new common ground to which we aspire is one where social capital is generated by successfully operated and regulated free markets intertwined with successful business and trade and wide ownership. All these are mutually reinforcing.
	I believe—I am not sure that the present Government share this belief—that a modern market economy is a net moralising force which shapes the attitude and manners of our society. The whole idea that the market economy is a kind of infected area—a separate compartment all about greed, to be tolerated by modern governments, including the present Labour Government, but not really part of the moral and social structure of society—is misplaced. The relationship between market capitalism, the state and society is now two-way, very complex and rapidly changing. It needs redefining if we are to move on to new common ground.
	Secondly, the role of government has been vastly changed by information technology and the network society. Governments have less power to manage and provide centrally but, with less power, they have more responsibility to create conditions in which markets can work and deliver reliably and in which trust and social unity are strengthened. From some of his remarks it would appear that the Home Secretary is beginning to understand this, but I am not sure that the Prime Minister and other Ministers have quite absorbed it.
	Finally, the third missing element in the present Government's thinking is that they fail to understand that nation states underpin the international global order and give an identifiable shape to the moral and social structure. Duty, loyalty and obligation must be directed towards something that has roots and has grown up from the past.
	I hope that my party understands these new conditions and the new roles of government, leadership and authority. I see glimmerings of evidence that it does. In the future task of government we will need a much greater subtlety of communication—it will be a much more difficult business to govern in the future—and a much greater humility in serving the public. Mr Blair and his colleagues have certainly grasped the former—they are the masters of communication—but are they more humble? Do they understand the humility part of it? I think not. For too many of them the state is still the boss. They are standing on yesterday's middle ground, which is rapidly crumbling beneath them.

Lord Norton of Louth: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Patten on introducing the debate. There are two dimensions to my noble friend's Motion, one of which has been dealt with by my noble friend and by other speakers. The Government appear to introduce policies that derive from no clear political philosophy. That is depressing intellectually and extremely worrying politically. It is worrying for the country in that there is no clear coherence to the raft of policies being pursued by the Government.
	It is also worrying for the Labour Party. If the economy appears stable and there are no great difficulties facing the nation, the absence of a coherent philosophy is not a great problem for the governing party. However, if conditions worsen and the Government are in trouble in achieving their domestic goals, there is a problem, a matter touched upon by my noble friend Lord Brooke. The Government lack a clear philosophic reference point. If the Government start to falter then they are in serious trouble—and at the moment it looks very much as though the Government are faltering.
	There is a case to be made that the Labour Party has never had a clear, or at least a single, philosophy. It has never been a wholly socialist party. The 1918 constitution was arguably a socialist one but tempered by a social democratic element, not to mention the pragmatic element represented in large part by the trade union movement. The internal tensions were exacerbated in the 1950s by Anthony Crosland's work and today we see similar tensions writ large.
	However, there is one big difference. What we now have is a premiership that appears, on the whole, to be a philosophy-free zone. The extent to which the Prime Minister lacks a clear philosophy is shown not only by his failure to articulate such a philosophy—his speech at the LSE demonstrated that beyond peradventure—but also by the extent to which he masks it by attacking the previous Conservative Government. Governments are entitled to call attention to the failings of their predecessors. The Conservatives did it with Labour and the winter of discontent in 1978. However, the Prime Minister's constant reference to the previous Government, or indeed to the policy of the present Opposition, is relevant and distinctive for two reasons.
	The first is to be found in its persistence. Ask the Prime Minister about any aspect of government policy and he answers by reference to the Conservative Party. There is no attempt to answer in a positive manner. That in itself is instructive. The other reason it is distinctive is because of what it tells us about the Prime Minister's approach to the process of Government. It is this that I wish to focus on today.
	My noble friend's Motion refers to the "delivery of public policy". Does the party in government have a clear, coherent approach to government? My concern, as will be apparent from what I have just said, is that it does not. There is, I believe, a lack of understanding of what government is about and what makes it work. Ministers emphasise the need for "joined-up" government yet what we are witnessing is, ironically, the fragmentation of government.
	The process of government in this country has generally been effective because of the inter-dependence of the several bodies responsible for formulating and implementing public policy. That inter-dependence has enabled governments to cohere and deliver programmes of public policy because each part of the political system has recognised its distinct role within the system. It has been an inter- dependence of defined parts, each proceeding on the basis of mutual respect for the others.
	That mutual respect has declined dramatically in recent years. Attempts by the Prime Minister and by senior Ministers to achieve hegemony in policy making have led to conflict and eroded the demarcation of responsibilities that has been a feature of British government. The more the Prime Minister and senior Ministers have sought to centralise power in their own hands, then, perhaps paradoxically, the more fragmented British government has become.
	The move from governing together to governing alone can be located in two recent periods of government. The first is the period of government of my noble friend Lady Thatcher. During her premiership the Prime Minister became somewhat detached or semi-detached from her own Government. However, she nonetheless recognised, even if she did not always appreciate, the role and responsibilities of most bodies in the political process.
	The second period is that since the election of a Labour Government in 1997. The premiership of Tony Blair has seen the emergence full-blown of a presidential form of government. A feature of this has not only been a detachment from his own Government and party, as well as from Parliament, but also, concomitantly, from the use of Cabinet for resolving issues. A second contributory element has been the failure of some Ministers, lacking previous experience of government, to recognise the boundaries between the component parts of government and the conventions governing the relationship between them. The result has been a government that attempts to focus power in the hands of senior figures, but the more the attempt is made, the more government fragments and loses coherence.
	Let me draw out some of the features of this development. The Prime Minister demonstrates the symptoms of presidentialism. He stands apart from the rest of government. He cultivates the image of an outsider, of someone who engages in what has been termed "designer populism"—that is, he intervenes as the people's champion in an issue of public policy in order to enhance his own position. As Matthew Parris noted in The Times on 9th February, he intervenes in issues which really are no business of the Prime Minister. He seeks to convey that he embodies the national interest and, in doing so, he stands apart from his own Government, from Parliament and from his own party. He creates within No. 10 his own mini-government in order to facilitate this detachment.
	Cabinet and Ministers generally are left out of policy making. A number of Ministers appear to emulate the Prime Minister in seeking to engage in detached deliberation, consulting with special advisers but otherwise keeping out those normally involved in the process. The result is a government where decisions are taken by particular Ministers and where mutual respect has, in many cases, broken down. There is an apparent arrogance of government, an arrogance apparently borne of a lack of understanding of government. I readily accept that arrogance became a feature of the previous Conservative government, but it was an arrogance that came with longevity in office; and it came with a government losing their direction in terms of having a coherent political philosophy. We have now a government that have no clear political philosophy and arrogance of power appears a feature of their existence.
	There is, therefore, a problem. The Government proceed on the basis of no clear political philosophy, and no clear conception of the role of government. I may have got it wrong. I am quite happy to invite the Minister to explain what precisely is the Government's conception of government. And, if Ministers do have a clear conception of government, perhaps the noble Lord who is to respond to the debate can explain where the Civil Service and Parliament come within it. I remind the Minister that the general secretary of the First Division Association, in an interview in The Times, has suggested that the Prime Minister had caused huge resentment in Whitehall by failing to prepare properly or consult about decisions. Successive Speakers in another place have had to remind Ministers of the need to make policy statements first to Parliament, not to press conferences. Is this a consequence of a clear conception of what government is about?
	If, as I suspect, it is not, what are the Government doing to address the situation? There has always been a problem in that Ministers are not trained to be Ministers. Ministers take office and have to re-invent the wheel. Their most useful ideas on how to run ministries are usually those that they have when they leave office. However, many Ministers in the past had at least some experience as junior Ministers. They had spent some time in Parliament before being offered office. We now have a situation where Ministers have not really spent much time in apprenticeship, be it in government or, in many cases, in Parliament. The Prime Minister is in Parliament, but not of Parliament.
	There has always been a case for training Ministers in how to be Ministers. I know that junior Ministers now have some training, but senior Ministers appear to have no clear grounding in government. I believe it is vital that they have that grounding. That grounding needs to come from a clear, coherent and informed grasp of what makes government work. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what is being done to address what, I contend, is a serious problem.
	It was said that when Christopher Columbus set sail he did not know where he was going; when he got there, he did not know where he was; and when he got back he did not know where he had been. The Prime Minister appears to be in a similar position. The difference is that, while he has a firm hand on the wheel, he does not understand the crew and, wherever he is going, it is not to a New World!

Earl Russell: My Lords, I must begin my apologising to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, because I am afraid that I cannot enlighten him. However, I should like to thank the noble Lord for giving me my first paper speech at the Oxford Union. He has much to answer for. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for introducing a very interesting debate. I thank also the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, for a speech that I found philosophically fascinating and one that had a great deal more profundity than its easy delivery suggested.
	I say to Ministers in this House that today's debate is not meant to be a debate about their performance. I observe that Ministers in this place do have principles—with some of them I agree, but with others I do not. When I am dealing with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, I reach a point very rapidly where the height of his office prevents me from knowing. As the poem has it:
	"The Philatelist Royal was really too loyal to say what he honestly thought of philately".
	I hope, therefore, that no one on the Government Benches will take anything that I say personally.
	The moment that Tony Blair was elected leader of the Labour Party it occurred to me that nothing would ever be quite the same again, and that it was important to find out how it would be. So, for over a year, I read in full every text of every Blair speech press released by the Government. I set about them as if they were an academic text. But they did not say anything. Over and over again, they produced clichés that the Prime Minister appeared to believe had meaning. Over and over again, when one more sentence would have made clear what Blair intended to do, that sentence was not there.
	The Conservative criticism of Blair—that he is all spin and no substance—is really rather too generous to him. He is not one of those people, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, would refer, who cannot walk up the aisle of a cathedral without looking to see whether the wicket will take spin. I do not think that he knows it is spin. When he talks about reforming a public service, he believes that he knows what he means. It is a great deal more than I do when I hear him talk about reforming the service to which I belong. I have no idea what he means. When he talks about "modernising" something, I believe he thinks that he is making a precise and objective statement. But I have no idea what he means. Nothing that he produces in terms of practical proposals has led me to change my mind.
	I believe that the Labour Party got through its first term of office because of its debt to two different people, one of whom is much less honoured in the party than he deserves to be. I have in mind the late John Smith, who left behind him a legacy, including such measures as the minimum wage, the social chapter and Scottish devolution, which provided a great deal of the fuel for the Labour Party's first term. I turn to the other debt that he owes. The Prime Minister was a pessimist about the 1997 election; he believed that he might need the support of these Benches in a way in which, as it turned out, he did not. There was, therefore, a great deal in the programme, negotiated between my noble friend Lord Maclennan and Mr Robin Cook, that was very welcome on these Benches. It was also very welcome to many of the late John Smith's supporters on the Labour Benches. Indeed, I remember them listening very anxiously to some of the opening remarks on that programme. However, I do not think that that was as well understood by the Prime Minister.
	I shall not soon forget the first "Newsnight" interview of the 1997 election campaign. Mr Blair said:
	"There will be no increase in income tax in the next Parliament anywhere in the British Isles".
	"What!" responded Jeremy Paxman, "not even in Scotland?" Mr Blair blinked, wondered and then, three days later, announced—by what authority I do not know—that if Labour were to win the elections for the Scottish Parliament it would not use the tax-varying power. I understand that announcement to have been ultra vires. He then followed it up during the election campaign by the statement that, if a Scottish Parliament were established, "Sovereignty remains with me". I can think of only one statement as stupid about sovereignty. It was made by Mr Bill Cash during proceedings on his referendum Bill in the 1992-97 Parliament. In a Bill defending the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, he purported to lay down that one of its clauses could never be repealed. You cannot do that. I find those two stupidities on a level.
	I do not think that Mr Blair altogether understood what he had signed up to. I have often wondered whether part of the trouble was that he was brought up—as I know that the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, and I were—on the belief that it was part of the wisdom of Mr Churchill that in 1951 he accepted the bulk of the Attlee revolution. That may well be so, but the cases are not analogous. In 1951, the Labour Party polled 48.8 per cent of the vote. It polled more votes than the Conservative Party and achieved the highest percentage of the vote that it has ever polled in its existence. The Conservatives in 1997 did not make any analogous achievement. I believe that their figure was 31.5 per cent, but I shall not answer for the decimal point. So I do not think that he could rely on that argument.
	Next, I looked at the proposals to reform Clause IV. Mr Blair was not the first Labour leader to attempt to reform Clause IV. When Hugh Gaitskell attempted it, it was clear from the beginning exactly what sort of creed he intended to put in its place. He intended to take control, as he put it, of the commanding heights of the economy. In that context, my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead used a phrase that I think will interest his biographer. He described the renationalisation of steel as the Monte Cassino of the Labour movement.
	Mr Blair got approval for the abandonment of Clause IV before he had offered any alternative text. In place of the reference to the means of production, distribution and exchange, the following words were ultimately approved:
	"Labour will work in pursuit of these aims with trade unions, co-operative societies and other affiliated organisations, and also with voluntary organisations, consumer groups and other representative bodies".
	Could anyone disagree with that? Plenty of people in the Labour Party—I think of Mr John Monks, of the noble Lord, Lord Healey, or of Yvette Cooper in an essay in a book edited by the noble Lord, Lord Radice—could have made a clear statement in 1997 of what the Labour Party stood for which could unite the party, excite its members and send them out to work for it. Instead, we got this, which is an empty head.
	Now that Mr Blair is left alone, without the support that he had from the two previous traditions on which he had drawn, I regret to say that the emptiness is painfully apparent. He thinks he believes things. I wish he were right.

Lord Saatchi: My Lords, I am told that under our new rules I should declare an interest, which I now do, as a governor of the London School of Economics and as a director of the Centre for Policy Studies.
	Like other noble Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Patten for initiating the debate, first because of its timeliness. As my noble friend Lord Brooke said, this is the first time in a long while that we have witnessed the Prime Minister on the rack. Secondly, as all his writings show, my noble friend Lord Patten regards politics as a rational and intellectual pursuit. It is therefore typical of him to give us the pleasure of hearing this debate today. It is a mark of his respect for the intelligence of the public and a great credit to your Lordships' House in hearing it this afternoon.
	This has been an unbalanced debate, because no speakers have come forward from the Labour Benches to represent, defend or proselytise the Government's philosophy. In summing up for our Benches, I feel that I should start with a tribute. It is true, as Adlai Stevenson said, that,
	"All power corrupts and lack of power corrupts absolutely".
	The motivation of Labour leaders—which the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, sought—was to avoid the agonising lack of power that follows election defeat. So they made a mathematical calculation to eliminate the negatives associated with their party's former philosophy, neutralise the positives associated with their opponent and thus end a run of four election defeats.
	The rest is history. Mr Blair offered a beguiling synthesis of capitalism and socialism and with it, having got inside the door of No. 10, intended to slam that door in Conservative faces for ever. How would he do that? By showing that Conservatives were as brain dead as old-style socialists. That was the service provided by the concept of the third way.
	The third way was beyond Left and Right. We all knew that old-style socialism was dead, because it led to economic chaos. We were told that old-style capitalism was also dead, because it led to cruel global markets whose brute force is beyond the control of governments or countries. At a stroke, "the forces of conservatism" were to be consigned to the same intellectual dustbin of history as communism and Marxism.
	One of the greatest attributes of my noble friend Lady Thatcher was the ability to spot an intellectual with an idea and at once see its political potential. As my noble friend Lord Howell said, that is exactly what she did. He is before us, in the form of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross. Labour did the same with Professor Giddens' idea of the third way. Maybe the third way was just stealing Conservative clothes again, but Labour intended to polish them until they shone and relaunch the middle of the road and the art of the possible as something contemporary, exciting and idealistic, combining compassion with ambition, competition with fairness, globalisation with community and individual freedom with social justice. It was every schoolboy's dream—and apparently every voter's dream, too.
	Some time ago, I saw and heard President Clinton and our Prime Minister advise Centre-Left parties on how to win elections. They said that the polarities of Left and Right of the 20th century would prove an aberration. They favoured activist government, but highly disciplined. They spoke of prudent finance, fiscal responsibility, lower deficits, competition and choice. They said that the market economy was fundamental and rejected the Right-Wing, neo-Liberal philosophy that all would be well if governments shrank and got out of the way. They said that that view assumed that markets were always more intelligent than governments, but claimed that it pre-dated globalisation, which was shaking up all our institutions and had produced an entirely new form of capitalism beyond the reach of national governments.
	The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, referred to the motive. I do not consider the motive for the effort that Labour made to have been dishonourable. There had been a previous search for a synthesis of capitalist and socialist theory. Harold Macmillan's 1935 book The Middle Way was just that—an attempt to evolve a new type of economic order, alternative to capitalism or socialism.
	I do not believe that the Government's philosophy is to be condemned for wanting to follow in Harold Macmillan's footsteps. They are not necessarily to be condemned for seeking modernisation and change. They are not even to be condemned for the ruthlessness with which they conduct election campaigns. However, their philosophy should be condemned for the reason that my noble friend Lord Norton was driving at—for turning the spring of hope of May 1997, which even the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, was touched by, into today's winter of despair.
	The result of what my noble friend Lord Norton has described as the "lack of a reference point"—which was clearly chronicled in the debate that he initiated in your Lordships' House a few weeks ago—has been the decline in respect for Parliament and a greater cynicism about politics. I would say that it has also led directly to the country's current sceptical and pessimistic outlook. In making that comment, I rely on a MORI poll which reveals the depth of public disquiet, especially about the future of the public services, on which this new philosophy was focused. Some 37 per cent of people in Britain now think that most people or nearly everyone will have to pay for private schools. Some 56 per cent think that they will have to pay for private healthcare, 59 per cent for private welfare insurance, and 66 per cent for private pensions. In a Consumers' Association survey, 40 per cent of the public said that, in the face of NHS delays, they were willing to pay for private treatment even if they had no health insurance and had to pay for treatment out of their own pocket.
	Meanwhile, what has the Government's guiding philosophy done for those whom these public services are especially designed to help? Britain now has more households without a wage earner than any other country in the developed world. One in four children are living in poverty in this country. That is the highest rate of child poverty in Europe. Moreover, the poorest receive the worst public services. Incredibly, they also pay the most in tax. Consider the injustice in that. The poorest 10 per cent of people—the 3.6 million people earning less than half the national average wage—pay between 50 per cent and 63 per cent of their income in tax. Is it not outrageous that, under this philosophy, the least well off pay the highest rate? It is a mad world, with the poor paying a higher rate than the rich but receiving the least in return.
	How sad it all is. As many speakers have said, the philosophy has failed because Labour leaders weaved a tangled web and did not conform with the wisdom of the ancients. I need not remind noble Lords that the injunction of the Oracle at Delphi was, "Know thyself", or that those who failed to heed its warning met a sorry end. Oedipus, being ignorant of who he really was, went on to murder his father and marry his mother. The father of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, advised that a clear sense of identity, founded in self-knowledge, is,
	"the only possible protection against the disappointments and disillusionments to which the self-deceiver is liable".
	Mr Blair, our Prime Minister, knows that very well. That is why, as my noble friend Lord Patten said, he was so uncomfortable to be asked a simple question about his true philosophy. That is no doubt also the reason why there was not one Government Back-Bench speaker in this debate. In a brilliant phrase, President Kennedy—if I may join my noble friend Lord Alexander in quoting him—described himself as "an idealist without illusions". I think that, at the end of this debate, we can say that the current Prime Minister is an illusionist without ideals.

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for this opportunity to revisit our underlying philosophy. I readily endorse the view of the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, that life in the 21st century is much more complex than the world in which we grew up. Our challenges are greater because of globalisation, consumerism, 24-hour media and the Internet, to name but a few. Our world is also richer, stranger and in some ways more unstable. Therefore, our response to it at times must be both complex and pragmatic. Nevertheless, pragmatic solutions should strive to reflect our core values.
	I have listened with great interest to all speakers. As ever, I was struck by the breadth of experience and depth of knowledge in this House of which I am privileged to be a member. Nevertheless, this may be the first time that a Minister has been patronised so relentlessly over the course of an afternoon. I shall try to cover all the points raised, but, given time constraints, I may not be able to deal with all of them. I shall therefore try to write in reply to any material questions that remain unanswered.
	The noble Lord, Lord Patten, wanted to call attention to the political philosophy underlying the Government's development and delivery of public policy. Our philosophy is simply stated: a belief in greater equality, particularly in equality of opportunity, in progress and in strengthened community as a potential force for good as we strive to create a fair, just and modern Britain. Our philosophy must be fair, so that all have a chance to fulfil their full potential and live productive, happy lives. It must be just, so that people are not held back by poverty, discrimination or lack of opportunity. It must also be modern, ensuring the provision of infrastructure that is worthy of the 21st century and the world's fourth largest economy.
	I welcome the change in tone and approach by the party of the noble Lords opposite. Like the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, I am pleased that they have discovered that there is such a thing as society. We for our part cherish the positive contribution to good citizenship made by communities, supportive families and networks of interdependency—which are the visible and altruistic demonstration of our mutual interest.
	So how have the Government pursued turning our vision and values into reality? How do our actions explain and define our philosophy? The noble Earl, Lord Russell, quoted part of the Labour Party's principles. However, in winning last year's general election, the Labour Party declared to the electorate:
	"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes by the strength of our common endeavours we achieve more than we achieve alone so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not just the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together free in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect".
	Those are the core communal values of this Government. However, political ideas and values are of little use without the power and the will to turn them into a reality; otherwise, all we are left with are the politics of the pressure group or the lobbyist. As the Prime Minister has pointed out repeatedly, Labour had to broaden and deepen the appeal of its values to become electable. Once power was secured in 1997, economic stability and prosperity were essential in order to provide a solid platform on which to base our progressive programmes. Our economy is stable. Despite the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, we have the best economic record in Europe and the lowest unemployment rate among Europe's major economies. A strong and stable economy forms the bedrock of our achievements, and those achievements are many.
	The noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, once infamously said that, "Labour isn't working". However, this Labour economy has produced 1.3 million more jobs. The New Deal has helped cut youth unemployment by 70 per cent, reducing the wasted potential of lives spent on the dole.

Earl Russell: My Lords, in the light of last week's report from the Audit Commission, would the Minister care to withdraw that claim?

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, is the noble Earl referring to the claim that we have produced 1.3 million more jobs?

Earl Russell: My Lords, the Audit Commission's figure is that 35,000 jobs have been created through the New Deal.

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, as I said, the New Deal has helped to cut youth unemployment. When I was the Minister with responsibility for industry in Scotland, I was involved in New Deal schemes and saw at first hand its powerful effect in helping young people back to work.
	As well as low unemployment rates, we have very low interest rates, and mortgage rates are the lowest in a generation. We have also introduced the minimum wage and the working families tax credit to help make work pay and to tackle the problems of poverty to which the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, referred. We believe that the best route out of poverty is a job.
	The Government's next imperative in this Parliament is to create more accessible, high-quality and properly funded public services. Our public services symbolise our belief that the individual does best in a strong community. Comprehensive public services available to all have a place in our lives today just as they did more than half a century ago when the National Health Service was created and when the 1944 Education Act was passed. Collective provision continues to be the best way of ensuring that the majority get the opportunity and security that was once denied to them and available only to a privileged few.
	The ethos of those working in public services, working unselfishly for the common good is embodied in millions of people who enter public service animated by a sense of that common and public good which they then pursue in a disinterested way. Their ethos is based on a concept of service, on a shared sense of common purpose and a belief that we can together make a difference for that greater good.
	That is not to say that I do not appreciate the social responsibility of many in the private sector. The pursuit of the common good is not confined to the public sector: simply, it finds its most explicit expression there.
	But as we pay from the public purse, from the rates and taxes of hard-working families, we must also seek to provide the best public services for our people. That is why our public services cannot languish and why we must invest, reform and modernise to give the public value for money.
	Because we have one of the best performing economies today, the country can now afford record sustained investment in our public services, and it has to be sustained. For decades public services have suffered from erratic and inefficient stop-go investment resulting from boom and bust policies. That sustained investment helps our dedicated public servants deliver higher quality services across the country. For example, 140,000 additional public servants have been employed since 1997 and recruitment continues with more nurses, more doctors, more teachers in training and more police.
	However, it is clear that our public services must change from overly centralised bureaucracies and become locally accountable, more transparent and built around the needs of the users, the customers, the consumers, our citizens.
	The vulnerability of the public service ethos is that it can too easily slip into self-protectiveness, that the producer interest knows best and that the users need not be consulted. Just as importantly, public services cannot have the right to a blank cheque. We need responsive, high quality accessible public services that visibly provide value for money.
	That is why the policy driving our changes to the public service is built around the needs of the user. This vision is increasingly a reality. Some 30,000 more nurses have been recruited ahead of schedule. We have also offered greater choice in the National Health Service through innovative schemes such as NHS Direct, which has 98 per cent customer satisfaction. That is a great step forward in ensuring that people in all parts of society are able to take full advantage of health advice on call.
	The Government's search for the common ground mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is guided by four principles that will help ensure that our public services are brought up to the standard we already see in the best. Our first principle is that we should have national systems of standards and real accountability. We need national standards because we cannot tolerate local failure which blights lives and shuts off opportunities. We are against two-tier services and it is wrong to suggest the opposite.
	Thus in education we have national standards in numeracy and literacy and a powerful system of inspection which has seen standards rise substantially in recent years. We have also worked to improve the performance of police forces around the country. We have set up the Police Standards Unit. In health, we are putting an end to postcode lotteries in the interests of greater fairness via the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. We also try to tackle the inequalities that we see around us through various frameworks to attack heart disease, cancer and other killers in our society. We want services which are accountable to users. That is why we have introduced inspection regimes.
	Our second principle is to devolve and delegate more power locally to deliver those high standards. Budgets have been delegated to frontline staff. For instance, head teachers in schools now control almost 90 per cent of their own budgets. They know what their schools need so they are in charge of providing it. And in health, once primary care trusts are set up in April, they will move to take control of up to 75 per cent of NHS spending. So, Douglas Jay was wrong to say that the man in Whitehall knows best. We believe that we should not pretend that we in government know best and that we should try to delegate to people working in the front line to ensure that they can respond more flexibly and work to keep pace with constant change—our third principle.
	In a fast-changing world services need to be more responsive to customer demands and technological advance. That is why we have a target for all government services to be available online by 2005. We want to advance e-government in order to give people more access to information and to release resources that are presently taken up in more old-fashioned jobs. That flexibility will also make best use of the human potential of our increasingly well-qualified workforce.
	We believe, too, that advancement must be open to all on merit, ensuring that we move from rigid professional hierarchies towards a partnership of extended families of specialist and support staff. Flexibility means flexibility of rewards, too, so that we reward success whether in schools, in the health service or in the police.
	Our fourth principle is that people must have more choice. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, will be comforted to know that we also believe that there should be more contestability in the market. In that way we shall bring more choice to citizens. In every other part of our lives we take choice for granted. We do not see why it should be withheld in the public services where lives can hang on the quality of the services available. Therefore, we cannot tolerate chronic underperformance or failure; alternatives have to be made available and choice has to be expanded. We have to work to realise the potential that we shall need in our public services in the economy of the 21st century which we are entering, which will be a very competitive economy.
	We believe that this is a far-reaching strategy for radical reform which will be achieved through common-sense solutions. A noble Lord opposite predicted that I would point towards the pragmatism of this Government in tackling some of these problems. I make no excuse for that. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, pointed out, I come originally from a tradition which decreed that it was for philosophers to explain the world but for us to try to change it. I believe that the experience of this Government is to be as pragmatic as possible and to approach matters in partnership, including the partnerships with the private sector that we have developed through the PPP and PFI processes. For all the excoriation from the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clinton, I thought from what I had read of the debate going on—

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I am flattered by the noble Lord's reference, but it is Clifton, not Clinton.

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I apologise for my Glaswegian accent. I tried to say, "Clifton".
	I thought from what I had read of the debate going on within the Liberal Democrats that there was indeed a strong school of Liberal thinking which believed that they had gone perhaps too far in a reactionary approach to any change in the public sector. Indeed, some of the comments from the Liberal Democrat Benches showed ill-concealed hostility to the private sector, which I remind the noble Lord employs 80 per cent of our workforce in what is, I repeat, currently the most successful major economy in Europe.

Earl Russell: My Lords, I happen to be a member of the working group on that. No one in that group has an ideological hostility to the public or private sector. We are ready to consider any scheme that will marry them up but we recognise that the purposes of the scheme are different and that to get the marriage to work is a matter of considerable difficulty. We have been thinking about some of those questions for 10 years—they are quite difficult questions.

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for that subtle elucidation of his policy. That approach had not been apparent in the rather crude assaults that those on his Benches have made on my earlier PPP proposals.
	The concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, on the third way were summed up by other noble Lords. It is not too demanding to explain what we were searching for in that regard. We were looking for a synthesis that would take us away from a Labour Party past—which the noble Lord, Lord Norton, tried, none too successfully, to encapsulate—that was dominated by class politics, statism, nationalisation and high tax policies. Some of those policies were understandable in the context of hard times and in relation to a labour movement that was fighting for many causes, which eventually were won through the political organisation of the Labour Party. In breaking from our past, we were also contrasting our new way with the view that I characterise as involving selfish individualism, elitism, a belief in insularity and the proclamation that there was no such thing as society.
	We make no apology for trying to find a way that would be more popular with the British electorate than the previous Conservative government had become. That was the first phase that the Prime Minister talked about—that of reform. The second phase involves laying down the basis for economic stability. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Patten, say that policies were now emerging, in contrast to what he called our policy-free zone. Such a change in accusations about a Government who are too frequently accused of "initiativitis"! I am afraid that what has been said to date by Mr Duncan Smith and Dr Fox does not make up for the vacuum in policy that still exists. We are not holding our breath and waiting, as some Conservative spokesmen seemed to imply, for their policies to appear a couple of years down the line.
	The noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, mentioned lifting the flag of the one nation Tories. In that regard, I looked to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who quoted T. S. Eliot. That flag would be lifted over the wasteland of what had been the Conservative policies of the past. I am glad that the Conservative Party itself is not locked into its traditions and is moving towards the centre—no doubt to find some common ground or middle way.
	I share the admiration expressed by noble Lords opposite for the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, whose work at the IEA stimulated the thinking of many on the Left, in the Conservative Party and elsewhere. I assure him that the Prime Minister he saw come to power in 1997 is still the Prime Minister to whom I report today.
	I am running out of time, for which I apologise. I conclude by saying that ours is, we believe, a far-reaching strategy for radical reform. I repeat that I believe that that should be achieved through common-sense solutions. I make no apology for that pragmatism. That practical approach backs what works best in the real world. It is also a partnership approach. We want to move forward with public servants as partners in change. We will have partners in the public, private and voluntary sectors. They all have a part to play.
	If I have not reached the philosophical heights to which some noble Lords aspired, I hope that I have at least laid out the basis of what the Government believe, and on which we are trying to build our achievement. Our vision and goal is of Britain as a modern, fair and safe society where all people can fulfil their potential and lead happy and productive lives. Our means are investment and reform to ensure that public services flourish and continue to do so.

Lord Patten: My Lords, I shall be brief. Noble Lords are awaiting an important debate, to be introduced by my noble friend Lord Elton.
	I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. It has been an interesting and, as my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford said, enjoyable debate. There have been some splendid speeches from these Benches, two tip-top speeches from the Liberal Democrat Benches, both of which I enjoyed greatly, and a marvellous speech from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, who is in many ways an icon to people on both sides of the House. I wish that I could be so complimentary about the speeches from the Labour Back Benches. However, there have been no speeches from the Labour Back Benches in support of the doughty noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, who has had to bear the burden all by himself. It has been a rather trying week for the Labour Whips—a defeat last night, a muddle over business today and now an inability to get anyone to support the Labour Party's policies this afternoon. They have my sympathy—and it is only Wednesday!
	I conclude by pointing out—I repeat to a certain extent what I said when I introduced this debate—that this week, which has been a black week for Labour, we call the top of Blairism. If Mr Blair was traded publicly in the public markets—if we could obtain stocks and shares in Mr Blair—I should be out there instructing my man of business to start selling short quickly. There would be much money to be made from driving the stock down further and further. On that cheerful and optimistic note, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Crime Reduction

Lord Elton: rose to call attention to the available means of reducing the level and cost of crime and thereby reducing the size and cost of the prison population; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, there are now more than 70,000 British citizens locked up in prison in England and Wales, at taxpayers' expense. That is more than 23,000 more than there were in 1982. Those 70,000 have been put there by huge and costly effort to catch, convict and punish a few of those responsible for crimes that are now being recorded at a rate of 5,200,000—I stress that figure—per year. Reliable surveys show that if we could add unrecorded crime to that figure, it would be vastly larger.
	The cost of crime rises at least in proportion to its volume. The Association of British Insurers put the insured cost of domestic, commercial and car theft together at £242 million in 1982. By 2000, the figure had risen to £1.126 billion. Londoners should note that the Home Office calculates the full current cost—not just the insured cost—of all recorded crime in the Metropolitan area alone to be almost £3.5 billion. Adding in a calculation for unreported crime brings the figure to just over £10 billion. Everywhere we look, the trend is upwards.
	Recorded crime is now up by 1.7 million cases since 1981, when it stood at roughly 3.5 million. I deliberately chose 1981 as my example in case noble Lords thought that everybody else was getting the same bad results. By coincidence, the numbers recorded in that year in France were also roughly 3.5 million. By the end of the 1980s, when our total was heading for 5 million, theirs had fallen to about 3 million.
	The 70,000 who are now in prison were not the only contributors. They are just the ones who are unlucky enough not only to be caught but to be charged, brought to court, given a full trial, sentenced and given custodial punishment. At each of those six stages of that journey to prison, many more luckier ones left the train. NACRO tells me that in 1999 only 14 per cent of the 5.2 million serious crimes resulted in a charge or summons. From even that small proportion, just over one-third were either acquitted or had their cases dropped. Of all 492,000 charged with serious crimes, only 16 per cent ended up with a custodial sentence.
	And yet, none the less, there are 70,000 of them in our prisons today. That is a substantial tip of an iceberg of astonishing size and astonishing cost. The stated net cost of the Prison Service last year was £1,502,770,000. That works out at a cost per place of £22,890. The actual cost to taxpayers is more because that is net of contributions from other public bodies that taxpayers also pay for, such as the Youth Justice Board which contributes substantially.
	If, as a result of serving their sentences, all those 70,000 emerged as upright citizens, fitted to earn an honest living, the cost might be worth while. It would mean in a famous phrase that, after all, "prison works". But it does not. Within only two years, 58 per cent will re-offend and be back in prison. Both the level and the cost of crime are unacceptable. What we are doing currently to reduce the level and the cost is simply not working. I am one of those who has been doing the things that have not been working.
	The cost alone must surely lead any sane person to recognise that what we need is not more prisons, but fewer criminals. That would not only save the cost of their crime and punishment, but would also mean that we would gain the contribution of their honest activity in the national economy. Once we had fewer criminals we could perhaps reduce our efforts to recruit yet more policemen and, controversially, community support officers and the like as well.
	A means of identifying those at risk of becoming criminals would be an enormously useful tool. In his report to the Metropolitan Police Authority last week, the commissioner identified, and gave weightings to, 14 risk factors and four protective factors to be used in establishing which juveniles are most likely to offend. That sits well with, and perhaps refines, the identification process established for youth inclusion projects—YIPs. I am also encouraged by his saying that the Met is not the right body to hold that information. We cannot have the police thinking that they know, in advance, who will commit crimes on their patch tomorrow. The right body is the Youth Offending Team—YOT—and the right regime is information shared in rigorous confidentiality.
	In a speech last November, the deputy commissioner referred to criminals as people being swept along by a fast flowing river. Like him, I think that we should stop relying on wading in to catch them when they reach us and move up stream, to stop them falling or jumping in. Referring to the 18 per cent rise in street crime in the year to March 2001, he pointed out that between half and three-quarters of all street crime was down to juveniles.
	So, while others will be talking about the treatment of offenders and prevention of re-offending, I want your Lordships and the Government to concentrate on the prevention of first-time offending. A great deal is already afoot, and I give the Government the credit for a broad range of initiatives. Indeed, one of my concerns is that if they all impact on a single unfortunate individual at the same time, he will not be so much saved as stunned—hit on the head by the lifebelt.
	Another, and more serious concern is that, in the useful analogy, we are still standing far too far downstream. Youth inclusion programmes, for example, which I regard as one of the best targeted and best structured initiatives, cannot look at a youth to see whether he is at risk of offending until he is 13 years old. That is up to two years after he has arrived in his secondary school. Keep that secondary school in mind because I shall return to it.
	The deputy commissioner gave a chilling reference to a recent survey by the Met which found:
	"It is not an exaggeration to note that, for some of these children, street gangs provided a safer and more caring environment than their homes or their classrooms".
	So, back in that secondary school, in which a child is to be a pupil for up to two years before becoming eligible for the protective and supportive interest of a youth inclusion programme, he feels himself to be less safe than in a street gang. The deputy commissioner went on to say:
	"We need better to understand the environment in which they find themselves".
	Indeed we do.
	To begin to acquire that better understanding, a week ago last Saturday, I went to a conference convened by Diane Abbott MP, on what is happening to black children in London's schools. Mine was one of at most a score of white faces and there were many hundreds present. As a result of what I heard, I have been talking to a range of people, black and white, who have first-hand professional experience of what is going on. After all, if, to any of those children, a criminal gang feels safer than a school, we have an urgent need to find out what is going on there.
	Wondering whether I was in the right place to trace the origins of much violent crime, I was brought up short by a parent who, from the platform, asked, "What is it that is turning the little cherubs we held in our arms with so much love into gun-gangsters?". That was a cry from the heart that we must note.
	Ever since my first interest in education, I have been aware of the intensely destabilising effect on young people of frustrated educational ability. I do not believe that many people yet realise what an enormous pressure of frustration there is among London's black schoolchildren and their parents. We need to analyse the causes. A major one is that under present arrangements a pupil's academic progress is heavily dependent on a teacher's assessment of his or her ability. I shall illustrate that. The GCSE examinations were introduced to replace two separate examinations for different ability ranges to give every pupil a chance to score the best grades of which he is capable. The position has now changed and most subjects now require candidates to be entered for one of two tiers in the same examination and their entries are made for them, by their teachers, on the teachers' assessment of their ability. Very often that is done without the knowledge of the pupil or the parents.
	Higher tier candidates can score anything from an A star to a D. If they miss the D they fall straight into failure, which is a different problem. Foundation tier candidates, no matter how well they perform, cannot achieve better than a C grade. In mathematics there are now three tiers: higher, with possible grades of A star to D; intermediate, yielding only B to E grades; and foundation with only D to G grades. Selectors for many, indeed most, courses leading to the qualifications required for many, if not most, professional and white collar jobs simply will not interview any candidate who does not have better than a C in maths. The same is true of other levels in other subjects. So, a teacher's assessment can, without his or her knowledge or that of the parents, make a final and virtually irreversible career decision while a pupil is still only 13 years old.
	But teachers, you may say, are unprejudiced judges of ability. I was a teacher and I thought that I was an unprejudiced judge of ability. I am sure that they believe that and I am sure that we hope that they are. But listen to the experience of a senior lecturer at a British university, who happened to be black. When engaged on preparing his tenth book for publication, he attended a parents' day and was told by his son's teacher, "He's really doing very well. If he keeps on like this he may even get 5 GCSEs. And you can help by always seeing that there are some books in the house!" The son now has a bachelor's degree with honours from one British university, and a doctorate from another.
	That is not a one-off. A white researcher from an institute of education of high regard tells me that, in the schools that he has been studying over the years, all black parents say that if they visit the school without first putting on a business suit and tie, or the female equivalent, they are automatically taken either as single parents or cleaning staff. White parents can wear what they like. I am certain that the discrimination about which black parents and black pupils complain is not deliberate, but, unconscious though it is, it has the appearance of being systematic. That suggests to a large, important and talented part of our population that they are being kept down on purpose. That is wholly unacceptable and it must be addressed.
	I regret that I did not have time to give warning that so much of my speech would refer to education. I also take this opportunity to express regret that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, cannot be with us. He has written to me and I understand and sympathise with his difficulties, as does the rest of the House. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, will do his best in his place.
	It may be a delicate subject but it is a crucially important one. Speaking personally, I have a high regard for anyone with the guts to try teaching in a big inner city secondary school, which is 10 times harder now than when I did it back in the 1960s. I also admire anyone who sticks it for more than a couple of years and so gives some continuity of care to the pupils. But, that said, I believe that in inner cities with large black populations the job can be done better and easier if a substantial proportion of the staff are themselves black and so on the right side of the cultural divide when it comes to assessing and providing for their black pupils.
	My subjective view is that too many schools with mostly black pupils on the roll are managed and supervised by people of a different colour. We need objective figures. I ask the Government to give priority to a survey of the ethnicity of inner city school pupils and their staffs which includes a survey of the ethnicity of school governors and—this is particularly important—of schools' exclusion panels.
	Others better qualified than I will tell me if I am right. My view is this: no matter how well informed and benign these bodies may be, if they are entirely or overwhelmingly white they will never convince a 75 per cent black clientele of parents and pupils that they are free from ignorance of or prejudice against them. That is a barrier to trust that must be removed.
	I have focused on one key sector. But schools are not the only breeding grounds of crime. First, there are those excluded from school. I gladly acknowledge the progress made towards providing 25 hours of supervised work for all excluded pupils in the next school year. If that is accomplished it will be a notable achievement. In the school year 1999-2000 about 20 per cent of the 8,323 permanently excluded pupils were provided with home tuition. Regrettably, home is the starting place of much school trouble, and home tuition provides only five hours tuition, not 25. Will the Minister Lord please write to me, and copy his answer to the Library, to say how that will be dealt with?
	Secondly, we have truants out of school in school hours. That is a constant source of anxiety and a constant point of reference to all, myself included, who point to it as a fertile source and reliable predictor of crime. Ofsted reports, however, that in a whole range of truancy sweeps around 80 per cent of truants have been found in the company of an adult, usually of a parent. That should be remembered when considering the home as necessarily a good influence.
	Thirdly, children have long holidays. The French tackled their crime in part, and very successfully, by making generous public provision for them. Please may we include our own schemes, including the admirable SPLASH schemes, about which I am sure the noble Lord has been briefed?
	That leads me to a wider consideration still. The behaviour of the parents revealed by that report seems to me to reflect something going wrong in society as a whole. I think that we have become utterly fixated on the rights that individuals can expect—and exact—from society, and just about forgotten the duties that they owe to it and to each other. The human rights legislative saga that has pre-occupied this House, and some notable Members of it, to the exclusion of so much else, seems to have done subtle, but very real harm. It is time to redress the balance.
	In this redressing we can look for help from, among others, the Churches. I look to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester to stir his brethren about this and about one other issue. We have seen how crucial is the role played by our schools. Certainly they can do great and unintended damage, but that is only because they are in a position to do such enormous and such badly needed good. Where the need is so great, surely the clergy should be encouraging young men and women to be alert to a vocation to work in that field. If the other faiths could follow suit that would be all to the good. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will join with me in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for introducing this topic at what I consider to be a very important time. It is a time when there is a change in prison policy. Matters appear to be moving in directions of which I entirely approve.
	I followed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, with a great deal of interest. I took issue only at the end of it when he referred to the human rights legislation. He says that he thought I would. I do so for this reason: the whole purpose of the human rights legislation is to prevent innocent people from becoming victims. When we demand fair trials that is to prevent the innocent from being convicted. We are certainly entirely in favour of the guilty being properly dealt with and properly punished. I do not think that anyone should ever suspect that people who are engaged in the human rights field have any sympathy for guilty people.
	Going back to the end of the 1980s, I recall a sentencing conference that I attended in Cardiff. It was a conference for judges and for recorders. A very senior judge addressed us. He said, "Look here, boys"—it was Wales of course, and there was only one lady present among those 60 as one would expect of judges in Wales. "You hear about the Home Office saying don't send people to prison". That was the policy at the time. "You don't pay any attention to that. If you feel in your judgment that people should go to prison, you send them there".
	That was the climate at that time. It was the time when the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, was saying—and I entirely approve of what he said—that prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse. But then in 1991 there was a change. The Act of that year placed an emphasis on heavier punishments. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has already referred to 1993 and Mr Michael Howard. His announcement was that prison works. It worked in the sense that it kept people locked up. Naturally, that was a short-sighted policy. Unless one locks people up for the rest of their lives they will come out at some time. The question is, in what condition will they be returned into society?
	In the following five years the prison population rose some 50 per cent. That was not as a result of a direct instruction to judges, but because judges do reflect what they hear on the airwaves, read in the press and what politicians and commentators say. I think that perhaps it is right that they should do so. But sentencing increased to a very marked degree. The judges followed the existing guidelines and tariffs, but after a very short time, the pressures from the press and the politicians started to drive up sentences.
	There was a competition, which your Lordships will remember well, between Mr Howard and Mr Straw to "out-tough" each other. They thought it necessary to be perceived as being tough on crime and on the causes of crime in order to win the 1997 election. I recollect that the criticism from these Benches of the kind of cock-fighting that on prior to the 1997 election was treated with derision.
	More recently, each side has claimed credit for the recent fall in the figures of recorded crime. But it is not prison nor policing that has worked. It is investment in increased security measures which has made it much more difficult to break into cars and homes that has caused the fall in recorded crime, while violent crime has increased. Until mobile phones are automatically rendered useless when they are stolen, we shall continue to have the kind of robberies that we have heard about more recently.
	With this increased emphasis on prison over a whole decade, did we end up with the most successful criminal justice system in Europe? No, we did not. Over 70,000 people are locked up—about 130 for every 100,000 people. In Europe, only Portugal gaols a higher proportion than we do. For example, it is double the proportion of people locked up in Scandinavian countries. One has not heard of crime running riot in those countries. As for re-offending, 55 per cent of adults and 75 per cent of youngsters are back before the courts within two years of their release.
	The Home Office declared that,
	"a change in the use of custody of 25 per cent would be needed to produce a 1 per cent change in the level of crime".
	So the policy that has been followed over a period of 10 or 12 years of locking people up for longer has failed. Hence we now have new thinking. For us on these Benches there is great relief that the competition to out-tough each other appears to be over.
	Mr Oliver Letwin has brought new thinking to the Conservative Party. The Shadow Home Secretary now appears to be more open to a change of policy. What are the reasons for that? First, the prisons are full to overflowing. Secondly, the cost, running at about £24,000 per year per prisoner, is enormous. Thirdly, it is impossible to carry out the innovative rehabilitation programmes that exist. Fourthly, the Halliday report has pointed the way forward. I am sure that your Lordships have read that report. It states:
	"Sentencing serves the purpose of crime reduction and reparation as well as punishment".
	So those two additional elements have entered the thinking on sentencing.
	In addition, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned, there has been the work of the Youth Justice Board. Youth offending teams and youth inclusion programmes have been created. Investment in the Plus programme, which is a literacy and numeracy initiative, is yet to show results, but is heartening. The youth offending panels which have been set up to deal with referral orders come on stream shortly. I give the utmost credit to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, with whom I have often disagreed, and his staff, who have fought for and obtained the necessary funding for those intensive supervision and surveillance programmes.
	But there remains a major task: to cause the public to rethink. Due to the sensationalism of the press, it has been entrenched in people's minds that any sentence falling short of a harsh experience is a let-off. Courts are lenient, so people think; repeat offenders deserve harsher sentences, and so on. But it is my experience that if I ever come across a group of people who complain that the courts are lenient, talk to them about the most recent case in which I have been involved and ask them what sentence they would pass, it is inevitably much lower than the sentence actually passed by the courts.
	I must not exceed my allotted time. Prisons hold dangerous people, and it is right that they should do so. But, overwhelmingly, they hold damaged people: people who have gone through local authority care, suffered from unemployment, exhibited truanting, or faced exclusion from school, drug dependence or low educational attainment. A whole raft of matters must be tackled before we can solve the problem of crime in our society.

Lord Carr of Hadley: My Lords, I want first, as I am sure we all do, to congratulate my noble friend Lord Elton on introducing a debate on criminal policy in terms which enable us to deal with the subject in a broad way. Although there is certainly no reason why he should have told me, I must confess that I had not expected him to make his speech so educational. That is not my forte, and I regret that I cannot reply as I should wish because the points he raised are extremely important.
	However, I cannot help commenting on the packed Government Benches. Our previous debate on an extremely important subject attracted not a single Government Back-Bench speaker; I am glad to say that this debate has now attracted one listener. It is most extraordinary on a subject of this vital nature for everyone in this country—of all ages, sexes and parties—to witness the degree of interest shown by the Labour Party in this House. Frankly, I regard it as a disgrace; I hope that the Labour Party learns from it and will see that it never happens again.
	I have a problem with part of the wording of my noble friend's Motion. I am not sure that the total cost of the prison population can or should ever be reduced. The number of criminals in prison can and should be reduced by more use of alternative forms of punishment, but those in prison may cost us more if we are to improve their treatment. It is after all results that concern us rather than total cost. I seriously believe that the cost of our prison service needs to rise rather than fall, even though it may be applied to a smaller number of people.
	A year or two ago I was dismayed to hear a statement, presumably of reassurance, from a recent Home Secretary that we know that prison works. I found that extraordinary. It is clear that the present prison system has not been working. As I have said many times over the years, imprisonment is often the most expensive and least effective way to reform a criminal. This requires serious consideration.
	Of course prison is essential. Punishment is essential, and that must include imprisonment. But overcrowding in prisons must be reduced if prison is to be an effective sentence. Both the quantity and quality of education in prison must be significantly improved, as must provision for and counselling of prisoners before release if we are to settle them successfully in employment. All that is expensive—perhaps very expensive—but it would produce much better value for money.
	I therefore qualify my approval of and support for my noble friend's Motion with the caveat that we may well need to spend significantly more money but on—this is the vital proviso—a significantly smaller number of people. Of course, we cannot dictate to the courts, but we must seek, by advice, help and information, to reduce the size of our prison population so that those who need to go to prison get a higher standard of education, training and preparation for the day they come out. To walk out of prison at 8 o'clock one morning and be left in the labour marketplace is a recipe for disaster for both the people concerned and the society in which they work.
	More effective prisons may mean a more expensive prison system, even though a smaller one, but one providing much better value for money, leading to a significant reduction in the total cost of crime to the community. It is the total cost of the penal system and value for money that really matter.
	It is important to give more impetus to the development of non-custodial sentences. I know that they have been considerably developed, but I should like to see a further strong advance in both their quantity and quality.
	Incidentally, but importantly, community service sentences will require the extensive use of electronic tagging—a matter which has caused some controversy. However, if properly used, these can be of immense help in developing the greater use of non-custodial sentencing. In the end, giving service to one's fellow members of the community is the most effective expiation that a criminal can make, both for his own personal good and for re-establishing a position of responsibility within the community. In money terms, community sentencing can also be easily the cheapest form of treatment. It is much cheaper than putting people in prison and it is also much more effective. But it needs a continuous effort behind it, to see that it is expanded and improved.
	To accompany what I hope will become a smaller but much more effective prison service, the stronger development of community service sentences will clearly lead to the thoughtful and extensive development of tagging. I remember writing a letter to The Times when the matter first arose, thinking that I was making an unoriginal and not very controversial remark. I was astonished by the post that I received objecting to the whole idea of tagging. I simply do not understand that. Tagging enables more people to be kept out of prison, and it helps more people to re-establish themselves in the community in the best possible way from their own point of view and from that of their fellow community members.
	This an important debate. I welcome the greater attention given to the educational aspect. That must be at the root of reducing the number of criminals. I leave other speakers to take up, support and perhaps enlarge on the proposals put forward by my noble friend Lord Elton, who has done the House a great service by raising this matter.

The Lord Bishop of Gloucester: My Lords, there was some discussion earlier today about the travel arrangements for some noble Lords. I, too, have difficult travel arrangements this evening. Because of the need for my presence in my cathedral tomorrow morning, Maundy Thursday, I have to catch the last train to Gloucester tonight. I very much hope to be present for the whole of the debate. However, if that proves impossible to reconcile with getting to Paddington station on time, I apologise in advance to the noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Dholakia, the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, and other noble Lords.
	This is a topical debate, and one in which there will be a great deal of interest. I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for initiating it. It is a matter of great concern to the Churches, and that is why I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. Like many churchmen, I have three points to make which I believe are central; namely, the manner in which we treat young people, the issue of minority ethnic groups and their numbers in prison, and the use of custody.
	I turn first to the question of young people. This is an area in which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has devoted a great deal of his time and energy in terms of his support for the DIVERT Trust. The trust has set up mentoring schemes for young people who are in trouble with the law, and provides good role models for them. I am glad to say that a number of Christian organisations have followed the example of DIVERT: in particular, the Roman Catholic De Paul Trust, which is run by a Catholic priest who is also a chaplain at a young offenders institution. In addition, there have been initiatives from the Diocese of Rochester and several others. It is important that young people are not patronised, but that they find someone who is able to relate to them and provide a definite incentive for them to change.
	There is a great deal of material available on how deprived is the background of many young people who end up in custody. Perhaps I may give one example. The Prisons Inspectorate produced a report in November 2001 on the educational needs of those under 18 who are in prison. Seventy-three per cent described their educational achievement as "nil"; 84 per cent had been excluded from school; 52 per cent had ended their school career at 14 or younger; and 49 per cent had been in care at some time.
	These are young people who have committed crimes, and no one is making an excuse for that. However, the sad reality is that for many of these young people education can only be described as a disaster zone. They are unemployable at present, and almost inevitably they will experiment with drugs, alcohol and other ways of combating the boredom and frustration that loom ahead of them.
	I am sure that young people who commit robbery, muggings and burglary, to say nothing of vandalism, present a picture which is often horrifying, frightening and offensive. However, these young people are trapped in an educational cul-de-sac which offers them nothing for the future. I am glad to commend the work of the Youth Justice Board, which is well aware of the problem and is putting its greatest efforts into seeking a solution.
	My second point is that there is an alarmingly disproportionate number of black people in prison. They represent 18 per cent of all prisoners, compared to the 3 per cent of the general population who are from black communities. Even allowing for social conditions, no one seriously believes that black people commit six times more crime. So this suggests that black offenders are more likely to end up in prison than white offenders.
	Different research gives different conclusions about how far that figure is due to discriminatory decisions in the criminal justice process, and at what stages along the line discrimination may take place. However, it is clear that the need to reduce the prison population must include effective work with black and Asian communities. I welcome the initiatives which the police service has taken to build good relationships with those communities. Too often in the past there has been suspicion on both sides. The independent police complaints authority that was announced in the current Police Bill should very much help matters here. But ultimately there is a need to reduce unemployment in such communities to the same level as that in the rest of England. I commend the work of the Church Urban Fund, which has undoubtedly played a part in this area.
	My third point relates to the use of custody. There has been a sharp increase in the number of people being sent to prison by both magistrates and Crown Courts in the last decade. It is not as though crime has increased; it has actually fallen. In France, the prison population fell from 51,000 in 1995 to 46,00 in 2001. But the prison population in this country went the other way—from 46,000 to 70,000 in roughly the same period. It is important that we take at least two steps to respond to this growth.
	First, there is a need to try to ensure that those who are presently in prison do not re-offend. More positively, they need help with resettlement. The forthcoming social exclusion report will be of great importance in this regard. The Churches, ecumenically, through the Churches Criminal Justice Forum, now employ two full-time Salvation Army officers working on nothing but resettlement issues, thanks to the generosity of the Salvation Army. They work with prison chaplains, volunteers and local churches in helping with resettlement. Secondly, we must surely explore other ways of sentencing people to punishment. Community sentences are another way forward. Again, the Churches Criminal Justice Forum, thanks to a grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Re-thinking Crime and Punishment initiative, is employing a development worker for two years to help churches to debate the issues and to encourage church members to get involved practically.
	This is a subject of great importance for the future of our society. Of course, we must defend law and order, but we also have a duty to young men and women who, for one reason or another, are educational failures. We must provide a better way for them than the prospect of years of imprisonment. The churches are keen to play their part in that ongoing debate.
	In response to the direct question that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, asked me at the end of his speech, I say that I agree entirely that teaching is an enormously important and honourable profession. I have no doubt that all parochial clergy spend much of their time, week by week, supporting the schools in their parish. They also encourage appropriate young people to consider seriously the possibility of taking up teaching as a career. I shall make certain that that continues in my diocese.

Baroness Stern: My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for initiating the debate. He has made such a contribution over the years to keeping our criminal justice system civilised. His constant reminders of the cruelty that we inflict on children in the name of crime control have long been an inspiration to me and, I am sure, to many other noble Lords. It is characteristic of him that he spent a weekend at a conference on under-achievement among black children.
	I am glad that we are talking about reducing the level and cost of crime. Preventing crime must be better than dealing with it after the event. Preventing unnecessary incarceration is worth talking about for moral, financial and social reasons. Noble Lords have mentioned the fact that this month saw the passing of a milestone: 70,000 prisoners. That is a rise of 5,000 since 15th March last year. Only Thailand, in the whole world, can match that rate of increase.
	I have watched the prison population since 1977. Like share values, it has gone down, as well as up—mostly up. In 1994, the Home Office thought that, by now, we would have 56,600 in prison. I admit that I did not expect to see the figure at 70,000. There are well known, proven ways of reducing the use of prison, as the noble Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell, knows. He used them to great effect. I would have expected that, by now, any government would use them.
	I shall concentrate on comparisons with other countries in Europe. We do things differently here, and it is worth asking whether we do them better. As an interesting comparison, we are now top of the EU league table of rates of imprisonment. I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that we are now joint top with Portugal, at 131 per 100,000. Portugal will soon reduce the use of prison because of a brave and imaginative method of dealing with drug possession. Possession of up to 10 days' supply of an illegal drug has become an administrative offence rather than a criminal offence. Those who are apprehended are linked to treatment rather than punishment.
	We are at 131. That is more than Bulgaria, Turkey and Albania. There is a great gap between us and our neighbours. France is at 78, Belgium at 85, the Netherlands at 87 and Denmark at 62. Those are not marginal differences. They signify a different approach and attitude. Why is that so? The Minister should consider whether the balance that we have struck between punishment and prevention in dealing with crime is wrong. Are we running too fast after more punishments and making more acts criminal instead of reflecting and working on how to prevent crime? If the Minister were to agree that more emphasis on prevention is right, he would have the public with him.
	I am pleased that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester mentioned the Re-thinking Crime and Punishment project run by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. I must declare an interest as an adviser to the foundation. It recently commissioned a study from MORI, asking some interesting questions. Members of the public were shown a list of possible interventions and asked which two or three on the list would do most to reduce crime in Britain. The top three answers were: better parenting; more police on the beat; and better discipline in schools. All those got more than 40 per cent. The option of putting more offenders in prison got 8 per cent. Some 53 per cent felt that most people came out of prison worse than when they went in, whereas 14 per cent disagreed with that. When asked how they would spend £10 million on dealing with crime, 31 per cent said that they would set up teams in 30 large cities to identify and work with children most at risk of getting into crime. The proportion that would spend it on keeping 400 adult offenders in prison for a year was 2 per cent. Prevention is popular.
	How do we compare with other countries in striking a balance between punishment and prevention, between social measures that give people the opportunity to lead a better life and measures of criminal justice control? It is difficult to make such comparisons, but they are often made when spending on health and education is compared. I have figures in US dollars for expenditure per capita on health. France spends over 2,000 dollars, Germany 2,400, the Netherlands over 2,000, Sweden 1,750 and the United Kingdom 1,400. I know that there are similar figures for education, to which, perhaps, the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, will refer later.
	I also found some figures in the journal of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, comparing expenditure per capita on prosecution, judiciary, police and prisons. The figures show that expenditure in England and Wales is much higher than in France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany. We underspend comparatively on health and education, and we spend more than other countries on criminal justice. Is government policy going in the wrong direction when we make decisions about spending priorities in creating a safe and good society? Do we invest in closed circuit television as a substitute for measures to promote good neighbourliness? We lead the world in CCTV surveillance; there are more cameras per head of population here than in any other country.
	Last week, in the House, there was a discussion about a government amendment to the Police Reform Bill. It concerned something called ASBOs, which are, in fact, anti-social behaviour orders. I know that the Minister will say that they are popular, and I am sure that they are when people are at the end of their tether, living with a terrible family in their street and are not offered any other option. However, what is being stored up for the future by that method of social control? What is the future for an ASBO'd young person? Having such a label at such an age makes a future of crime, more victims and prison almost inevitable. Compared with that, the cost of an alternative approach to the doubtless horrendous and appalling young person who is ASBO'd—it may be mediation, social support and family support—is cheap. Furthermore, it is right.
	I know that the Home Office has an economics and resources analysis unit, based in the research branch, which researches the outcomes of various measures to deal with crime. I wonder whether the Minister will be able to tell us whether there is any information from that unit about the outcomes of investment in CCTVs, ASBOs and curfews as compared with community strengthening, the mediation of disputes, programmes which challenge young people, good schools, good mental health services and support for families.

Lord Hurd of Westwell: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Elton for initiating the debate. Our House has a particular responsibility in pursuing the matter. We debated it last July and should do so from time to time.
	I declare an interest as president of the Prison Reform Trust, though I have handed over the important job of chair to the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes. We look forward to hearing the noble Lord speak later in the debate.
	In my office, there is a photograph of six former Home Secretaries—all Members of this House—gathered around a bust of Sir Robert Peel celebrating the second centenary of his birth. We all feel a certain solidarity in as much as we all had to tackle a difficult job. One of the former Home Secretaries—the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead—tells us from time to time that being Chancellor of the Exchequer is like living through a long dark winter night—he was of course talking about being Chancellor in a Labour government—whereas at the Home Office, the occupant is subject to being struck by sudden storms coming out of a clear summer sky.
	The present Home Secretary is certainly beset by several storms coming from different quarters of the compass, if that is possible. They are immigration and asylum, police reform, street crime and now the onrush of prison overcrowding. I am not sure whether the calm and thoughtful nature of the debate reflects what is happening daily in our prisons.
	The Home Secretary, realising that, is in public leaning hard on the Chancellor of the Exchequer for more money. In my experience, that is a rather dodgy tactic, but I wish him luck in it. However, I want briefly to deal with the need to ensure that the Home Secretary, within the resources which he currently has, gets his priorities right. I urge that in the turmoil, which is greater than has yet emerged in the debate, the expenditure on prisons—in particular the expenditure on purposeful activity in prisons—should not sink to the bottom of the list.
	I have a reason for saying that. I vividly remember what happens when overcrowding ceases to become just one of many worries and comes to the top of the list as a result of the courts' decisions. What suffers is not the negative business of keeping prisoners in gaol behind bars; what suffers is the positive side of prison life. What suffers is the attempt to reduce the risk of re-offending. What suffers is the effort to reach prisoners and help them reshape their futures.
	The whole emphasis becomes one of coping simply with the documents, with the inflow of prisoners and with the arrival and departure of vans. The prisoners cease to be individuals and they shrink to the status of statistics. They are bussed across the country from one prison to another—to whatever will hold them—far from their homes.
	The rise is fairly recent but the chief inspector is already aware of it. As a strong admirer of the previous chief inspector, Sir David Ramsbotham, I believe that the new chief inspector, Anne Owers, has made a wholly admirable start. She recently said:
	"What we are seeing now is a game of musical cells, more like a game of pinball where prisoners merely touch a prison and need to be moved away swiftly to accommodate the next lot. The courses and programmes which they may be involved in are disrupted. The crucial work on resettlement is not being done".
	That is the chief inspector's preliminary assessment of the present situation.
	I want to put to the Minister one or two specific examples. If they are inaccurate, I hope that he will write to me. I am told that at Wandsworth the refurbishment of E-wing has been scrubbed. The refurbishment of E-wing is crucial. It is the creation of cells which will be safer for prisoners who are tempted or liable to commit suicide. Why has it been put in ice? Because it requires space to decant the 100 or so prisoners who are presently there. There is not the space in Wandsworth, and presumably elsewhere in London, to do that, so E-wing remains as it is—with the risks.
	From the young offenders prison at Feltham, which we all know is full, young prisoners are being shunted to Wetherby out of reach of their families and the whole array of voluntary services now available at Feltham. Three prisons have been converted to use by women because of the sharp rise in the female prison population. At Buckley Hall, that change has meant the closing of a particularly good housing advice centre.
	Many cells in prisons across the country designed for two people are occupied by three. The chief inspector drew attention to what it must be like to eat your meals day in, day out, sitting on a lavatory. A letter written to the Prison Reform Trust from a prisoner in that situation states that because there is only one table in a cell for three he cannot write, read or study and he is becoming bitter, dirty and hostile.
	Sixty-five per cent of the overcrowded prisons fail to meet the target of 24 hours per week of purposeful activity. Twenty-four hours a week is not a lot but that target is not being met. Behind that figure lie hundreds, perhaps thousands, of such incidents cell by cell.
	That is bad news. It is bad news for the prisoners but it is bad news for all of us. I increasingly feel—I did not always feel it—that the most important moment in the cycle is the day when the prisoner leaves prison. My noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley referred to that. He leaves—I call him "he" because most prisoners are men—a way of life in prison which is harsh in one sense but easy in another because all decisions are taken away from him and he is protected from all the hazards which come with free choice. Now he is physically free again, but free for what? Down the road are his old friends; down the road are the drugs and the drink; and down the road is the temptation to commit crimes to finance the drugs and the drink.
	In the balance on his side could be—can be—new ideas and skills acquired and stimulated in prison to help resist the hazards of a free life. They can help him find a home and help him obtain and hold a job. We all know that such help is already skimpy and shaky and is not matched by all the services available on release. But overcrowding weakens, strains and even destroys that help because of the pressure on budgets. I ask the Minister to urge the director general and the Home Secretary to grip the situation. They must not allow the positive efforts prison by prison to wither away—efforts in prison and efforts after release. We must constantly remind the Government how vital such positive effort is not only to prisoners but to the society which one day they will re-enter.

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Elton, most warmly not only on initiating the debate but on his brilliant introduction. The incidence of violent crime in this country is growing and many noble Lords have drawn attention to that. We know that there are many causes of violent crime and it is generally held that the individual's criminality is triggered not by one cause but often by a cluster of malignant factors.
	Today I have time to draw the attention of the House to only one of those root causes. It is one which recent research has shown to be extremely important. It is, surprisingly, the way in which a child's brain develops during the critical period between conception and the age of three. Those early years are now known to be critical to the child's later social and emotional development.
	Recent advances in brain scan technology have enabled neurologists to gain a much clearer understanding of the way the human brain develops. The research has shown that the 100 billion brain cells, called neurons, which a child will ever have are formed during the first half of pregnancy. After that, the synapses—the connections—between those brain cells begin to develop. By the time the child is born, about 50 trillion synapses have been made. Over the next three years of a child's development, that number increases 20 times to 1,000 trillion. Today, scientists accept that that is much too large a number to be specified by genetic factors alone. It is now generally believed that these new synapses are formed, or at least moderated, by the child's experience in the womb and during the first three years of life.
	Two other important factors have emerged. Synapses which are used regularly tend to become "hard wired"; that is, they are hard to shift later. This means that what is learnt early, and the behaviour that corresponds to that learning, may be very resistant to change later on. Synapses which are not used early tend to atrophy or may be diverted to other uses in the brain. In practice, the brain in a young child develops in a "use-dependent" fashion. External and environmental experiences during the latter part of pregnancy and in the first three years can affect the development of a child's brain for life.
	I shall go into a little more detail. During pregnancy, the development of the foetal brain can be influenced by drugs in the mother's bloodstream, including alcohol and nicotine, or by the mother's fear, depression or stress. It is worth mentioning that between 1991 and 1997 there was a rise of over 300 per cent in the acknowledged use of alcohol among pregnant women. During the first three years following birth, abuse, violence, parental stress and depression can influence the way in which the child's brain develops. So can abandonment or neglect. The very structure of an infant's brain can be altered by such dramatic experiences.
	The baby who has a healthy relationship with its mother learns how to calm himself from the way his mother calmed him. From having learnt what pleases or displeases her, he can weigh up the consequences of his actions. The child from a violent family has none of these checks and balances. An infant, who, as he grows up, is deprived of the natural stimulation of a loving relationship with his parent, may lose the use of some of the synapses most important for establishing good human relationships in later life. Furthermore, he may lose others which are important for successful learning.
	Many of these outcomes have been confirmed by physical evidence. The brains of abused children are significantly smaller than those of non-abused children. The limbic system governing the emotions is some 20 to 30 per cent smaller and tends to have fewer synapses. Similarly, the hippocampus, responsible for memory, is also found to be smaller in abused children. Changes causing increased activity occur in the locus coeruleus, responsible for hair-trigger reactions and alertness, as one might expect in violent families.
	From society's point of view, the most dangerous feature of these brain-damaged children is that so many of them grow up angry, frustrated and aggressive. Many more grow up ill equipped to succeed at school. The importance of success at school has been emphasised by a number of noble Lords.
	I do not want to imply that remediation is not possible, but I have to say that, from my own experience as a trustee of the Caldecott Community which works with seriously damaged children of this kind, I know that the treatment is both difficult and expensive. Furthermore, the outcomes are very uncertain. If any noble Lord would like more information about the research that I have outlined, I have a reading list which I would be most happy to make available.
	If it is true that early parental care is so very important in avoiding crime, disaffection and exclusion, then there are things which any government ought to be doing. For example, local authorities should not be allowed to house vulnerable young parents with babies and toddlers in bed and breakfast accommodation or, indeed, in lonely single-room flats without any support. Antenatal clinics, which we ought somehow to persuade or even bribe all parents to attend, should teach mothers during pregnancy—a time when they are most receptive—about the social, emotional and cognitive needs of children. Trained staff are needed to do that job. Health visitors should also be trained follow up the training and be given more time to support vulnerable young parents.
	Education in schools should take seriously the preparation of young people for future parenthood. In my opinion, it should form a key element of the citizenship curriculum. Every community should have an accessible centre where parents can go with their baby or toddler and find a welcome there, find other parents to talk to, and find help if they ask for it—including respite child care. Finally, government tax and benefit structures should recognise and encourage parents, and those extended families which are prepared to make a commitment, to work together for the welfare of their child.
	However, there are tougher issues than those; they are the easy ones. There are issues concerning society's values in relation to the responsibilities of parenthood which I do not have time to discuss in detail. However, I should very much like to return to those matters on a future occasion.
	Before I finish, I must give the Government credit for their Sure Start and Early Learning initiatives. Both are greatly to be welcomed. But now we need to see those schemes operating and delivering effectively right across the country. Much more needs to be done. The cost of prevention will be tiny in comparison with the cost of violent crime.

Lord Windlesham: My Lords, I add my voice to the tenor of this debate which has been so well and opportunely moved by my noble friend Lord Elton. In the time available I should like to concentrate on only two matters. The first is sentencing—that is, the process that leads to imprisonment—and the second is the home detention curfew.
	The background to what is happening in sentencing at the moment, as I see it, is that ministerial statements, exacerbated by the tabloid press—to which they often seem specifically to be aimed—inevitably have an effect on the attitude of sentencers in the courts. Yet it is the courts which have to determine what is a fair and proportionate response to the harm that has been done. The flexibility which results is one of the great virtues of the common law system. Aside from setting the maximum sentence, the penalty is not prescribed by law. However, the decision on the actual sentence imposed within that maximum is taken by the individual judge or magistrate.
	It is true that the courts can be guided, but it is vital, for the reason of separation of powers and other reasons of principle, that it should be the judges and not the politicians who determine sentencing policy. In particular, it is the judiciary which should determine the sentences passed in individual cases. The higher courts have not been slow or reluctant to set an example of what can be done.
	Two recent, well-publicised judgments in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, by the present Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, demonstrate this. The first was the case of R v. Lobban and others, in which the Lord Chief Justice, referring to the theft of mobile phones—this was not accurately reported; or at any rate the perception reflected in news reports was, I suspect, not what he intended—stated that,
	"we are not intending to set guidelines . . . we are seeking to draw together the principles which are already clearly established by the reported decisions of the court".
	He went on to deal with a range of penalties which would be appropriate for the widespread affliction of the theft, sometimes robbery, of mobile phones.
	Some more general comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, on sentencing policy were contained in his judgment in the case of Kefford in the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal as recently as 5th March. The court heard an appeal against a 12 month gaol sentence for theft and false accounting. In substituting a four month sentence, the court said that with prison overcrowding only those who needed to be imprisoned should be and for no longer than necessary. For economic crimes, imprisonment was not necessarily the best sentence, especially where the offender was of previous good character. That is clear guidance coming from the courts to sentencers; and it is a correct procedure which should be followed. Politicians should be kept at arm's length from attempting to influence levels of sentencing by the courts.
	I turn next to home detention curfew by way of electronic tagging. This is a relatively new innovation, although the technology has been known for several years. It originated in the United States. However, partly because of faulty systems, and partly perhaps because of reluctance within the Home Office and the penal system generally, tagging has only become commonplace within the past two or three years. As an innovation it has been successful, allowing numbers of low-risk offenders to be released early, subject to a curfew—that is, to remain at their home address, if they have one, or at some other known address—during evening hours; with any breach of that obligation being recorded electronically so that the offender can be brought back into custody without placing the public at any risk.
	The decision to release a prisoner subject to curfew is taken by the prison governor. It has turned out to be a wise procedure. A governor gets to know quite a lot about an individual prisoner during the time that he or she has been in custody. It is for the governor to make an informed decision, after a careful assessment of the risk of reoffending. The policy has been a cautious, but successful, one. Levels of reoffending have been very low. I believe that only in the order of 2 per cent of those released early on HDC have reoffended. That figure compares with a reoffending rate of 58 per cent for the prison population as a whole. So we see here a successful selective process.
	Word is coming from the Home Office that the Home Secretary is considering making home detention curfew automatic, saying "There won't be much risk to the public because very few prisoners who have been released on HDC have reoffended." But if the system is widely extended, the risk of reoffending will rise sharply, with the result that this successful selective scheme will be jeopardised. I hope that the Minister will make a careful note of these comments, and take them back to the Home Office in the hope that no decision has yet been taken. Although there has been some press comment on the issue, I am not aware that any decision has been taken or announced.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, I join in the universal thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for initiating the debate. I should like to draw on experience from Northern Ireland and some other countries to try to outline a nine point strategy for preventing and reducing crime in particular neighbourhoods—one might almost say for the drying up of the supply of new criminals.
	I start with community development, which is greatly needed, most of all in areas of high youth crime. This kind of development aims to enable local leadership to emerge. It will help identify local needs and raise local morale by initiating self help and mutual help.
	I turn to parenting skills. My noble friend Lord Northbourne has mentioned the issue often in your Lordships' House. Help with these is vitally important for unsupported couples and single parents. Different skills are needed for coping with babies and later with teenagers. Acceptable advice can be the key when problems occur in families.
	Crime prevention aims to create safe neighbourhoods. In Northern Ireland this starts with pre-school playgroups. It continues with after-school clubs and drop-ins, and youth sport and art groups, all with maximum involvement of parents. Anything which helps young people to relate to each other and to adults seems to be worth trying. Where gangs are a problem, ex-gang members should be brought in to act as mentors and mediators. I understand that this has improved things in some of the toughest parts of Los Angeles.
	Youth facilities, such as clubs and swimming pools, also have a part to play. Simple points such as opening play areas at weekends and evenings are most important.
	Truancy, dropping out and suspension from school have been mentioned, notably by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. This is where trouble so often begins and leads on to serious trouble. Systems are needed to provide alternative education and personal development with mentoring so that ideally no one loses a single day of schooling. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned the current target of 25 hours a week home tuition. I hope that that target will be pursued very determinedly and will soon be reached. We have a long way to go.
	Better management of social housing can make a big contribution. That includes providing caretakers for blocks of flats, better lighting, closed circuit TV and the prompt removal of unlicensed cars, rubbish and graffiti. Above all, better management will avoid placing all problem families together on "sink estates". I hope that that process has started; it is greatly needed.
	Local community restorative justice has been shown to work in at least three continents, including England and Northern Ireland. It can take much strain off the police and the courts. It deals with anti-social behaviour, neighbours' disputes and young people "hanging out" in a threatening way. It can reconcile victims and offenders. Training will normally be necessary for those involved to ensure fairness and good practice.
	Youth offending teams have been mentioned. They already exist in many places. Police and public liaison committees exist in some. Those bodies should help statutory and voluntary agencies to work together but they need the support of all groups in the community as well as information coming from individual.
	Finally, I come to visible policing. This reinforces all the earlier eight points. Wherever possible, it should provide a beat system so that individual constables come to know the local people and are known by them. Local police surgeries can help; so also can police auxiliaries and special constables by providing supervision of known trouble spots and problem areas.
	Your Lordships will have noticed that the first seven points I have mentioned hardly involve the police at all. However, they do depend on all components of the community working together for a safe and harmonious village neighbourhood or town. That will be achieved only by good co-operation between statutory and voluntary bodies, together will all community organisations. When the police also are deeply involved, there is a chance of making real progress. I very much hope that strategies of this kind will be applied in each of the five high crime police priority areas which have been identified in England and Wales. I note that two of these are in south London. Without full community co-operation, I fear that extra policing effort by itself will only drive crime into other areas. That would not solve very much and our prisons would be just as full as ever.

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, I, too, am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for initiating this debate. I welcome any opportunity for discussion of what is one of the most difficult as well as the most important of public policy areas; namely, how to deal with crime and criminals and in particular how to use imprisonment as one of our tools of punishment and public protection.
	I declare an interest as the chairman of the initiative referred to by two speakers. It is called "Rethinking Crime and Punishment", funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation of which I am a trustee. It is a three-year strategic initiative designed to raise the level of debate about prison and alternative forms of punishment through funding initiatives which inform, educate and involve the public, press, politicians and sentencers in the realities of prison and the alternatives for dealing with offenders. Today's debate represents an important contribution to what we are trying to achieve and for that I am very grateful.
	Overall, the crime rate is dropping—a surprising fact given much media reporting—although there is worrying evidence of a rise in street crimes in particular inner urban areas. But over the past five years 50 per cent more offenders were sent to prison despite fewer crimes being committed.
	I would like to look at what is happening to young people and children who offend. In a generally depressing picture of the outcomes of imprisonment—I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, said about the impossibility of the task landed on the Prison Service, with the catastrophic overcrowding that exists in our prisons—the younger the prisoner the higher the rate of re-offending and the greater, therefore, the failure of the system to do its fundamental job of protecting the public. If prison deterred, the prison population should be plummeting. The reality is that 58 per cent of prisoners discharged in 1997 were re-convicted within two years. Among young male offenders the figure for re-offending was 76 per cent.
	Along with many others, I believe that children under the age of 18 should not be held in prison. David Ramsbotham, the ex-Chief Inspector of Prisons, said that the Prison Service is essentially an organisation for adults and is neither structured nor equipped to deal with children. Yet figures produced by the Council of Europe in September 2000 showed England and Wales top of the European league with over twice the number of prisoners under 18 of Germany and three times more than France. What does that tell us about our system as regards children?
	It is absolutely clear to me that we must develop community alternatives to prison if we really wish to reduce crime, reduce costs and reduce the numbers in prison, especially children and young people. More than eight out of 10 15 and 16-year olds leaving YOIs are re-convicted within two years, yet it costs £40,000 a year to keep them there. By contrast, the most intensive community supervision schemes run by the Youth Justice Board cost £12,000 a year.
	Here is the challenge to sentencers who are responsible for the disposal and the politicians responsible for providing the alternatives: to fund, promote and use what really works.
	I have mentioned before in your Lordships' House one community-based initiative I know in Scotland for dealing with children who offend at what is called the "heavy end" of persistent young offenders. It is called Freagarrach, one of several in this field, run by Barnardos on whose Scottish committee I sit. Freagarrach costs a mere £1,500 a year and the rate of re-offending or return to some form of incarceration by these young people was 12 per cent last year.
	An assessment by Lancaster University judged that there were direct savings to the community of up to £158,000 annually. Everybody is gaining. Equally impressive is an alternative to custody for high tariff young male offenders aged 18 plus called the Airborne Initiative in the Scottish Borders. I am a patron of that organisation. As an alternative to a prison sentence these young men undertake a nine-week intensive course involving a combination of group work and outdoor activity. Of those who complete the course, coupled with intensive follow-up support, 60 per cent do not re-offend. The cost is approximately £1,000 a week. Again, it shows what can be achieved with high risk offenders to the benefit of all concerned and at vastly lower cost.
	However, my greatest concern is that despite the evidence of the failure of incarceration to stop re-offending, the number of ever younger children we are imprisoning in the three secure training centres now in existence is growing. Currently, there are 203 children in the juvenile secure estate who are under 15 years of age and over half of them are in the STCs, the rest being in local authority secure units. It costs £2,500 a week and the re-offending rates are enormous. One assessment showed 67 per cent had been re-arrested following further offences even before the second half of the sentence in the community had been completed. This is a very similar client group to the persistent young offenders in Freagarrach, and although the latter agree to attend the project—and who would not if the alternative was custody miles from home?—it shows just how counter-productive in cash and human terms is the punitive detention of children.
	I visited the Medway STC where part of the points system for earning privileges enabled the "trainees" to earn the privilege of another cuddly toy. Lest we forget: these hoodlums and tearaways are children. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child also seem to be forgotten here.
	Not only are Rainsbrook and Medway going to virtually double in size by June and November respectively in order to relocate some of the 100 or so girls currently held in prison, but I have learned that new, hugely expensive STCs are planned so that there will be 400 new places for children by 2005. How can we tolerate this?
	Today, we have 2,800 under-18s in some form of custody. There is a prediction that the figure will rise to 4,000. Can the Minister truly say that he can endorse these plans and measures? Should we not be investing in the development and improvement of local authority secure units where children who clearly require secure provision can go rather than making the huge investment which the STCs will require and where the outcomes are so damaging? I ask the Minister to visit, investigate and see what is possible through community alternatives, and then, with that knowledge, ask himself whether it is still right that we continue to lead the whole of western Europe in the incarceration of children.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the Motion of my noble friend Lord Elton refers to a deeply important and complex matter. One could almost truncate it by asking what has gone wrong with society and how do we put it right. If anyone had the answer to that, I doubt whether we would have found ourselves in the appalling mess we find ourselves in now. That is not a political point. It is merely a reference to what every government have faced over the past 40 years. I agree with my noble friend Lord Hurd that the calm measured nature of this debate does not necessarily reflect what goes on outside.
	Crime—its physical effect on people, its mental effect on people and its concomitant fear—haunts everyone. They do not like it; they want it ended; and the Home Secretary, like his predecessors before him, knows that and he does his best. But why do we all fail? I have not taken part in debates on prison and crime since I left the Home Office because I felt that I was not sufficiently knowledgeable or expert on the subject. Your Lordships may feel that is the most sensible judgment I have ever made. I may not swim along with the general drift of the debate, but I do not think that this somewhat philosophical Motion necessarily requires one to be an expert. It is the job of Parliament—and the Government as the executive—to protect society and the people within it.
	I have always taken a fairly robust view of crime. A criminal ought to be punished. No one has to commit crime. One has to be responsible for what one does. The fact that a person decides to go against the law, to go against the society of which he or she is a part—and which, if everyone else were to do the same thing, would end in absolute mayhem—requires its own condemnation. It requires punishment to which a person does not readily take and which can bring its own shame. Rehabilitation, restitution and education not to re-offend are all fine—they should all take place—but they should follow and not over-ride punishment.
	That does not justify the appalling prison conditions to which many noble Lords have referred. I have never found any difficulty with the concept of prison, although I wish it was not necessary and that prisons were better. I did, though, have personal difficulty when, as a Home Office Minister, I managed from time to time to visit prisons. One would look through a spy hole at a person who was entrapped in a cage, with locks and bolts and metal doors, like an animal in a zoo. One's conscience then turned like litmus paper into, "Poor person. There is almost something inhuman in this. What can be done for him?". That sentiment has rightly exercised penal reformers over the years.
	One of the real tragedies is that many prisoners are released early only to re-offend. The Sunday Telegraph gave some horrifying figures only 10 days ago. I think that it was the previous government who originally had the idea of tagging and carried out the trials. But in the three years from January 1999, when the Government's tagging scheme first started, to December 2001, as a result of prisoners who had not completed their prison sentences but were let out early, 1,456 new crimes were committed. These included four rapes, 38 serious woundings, 82 serious assaults, three kidnappings, 19 muggings and 223 other thefts. Seven offenders threatened to kill people, two offenders were found with guns, 14 were found with knives and there were 123 drug offences. As one police officer put it, "We are letting convicted criminals out to cause mayhem". Those offences were committed by people who had been let out early and who had not completed their sentence.
	When a person is released early and re-offends, there is an innocent person who becomes the subject of a most appalling experience, from which he or she may never recover, and who would not have received that experience had the offender been detained inside to his full term. Heaven knows, it is a difficult enough subject, but I find it intolerable that innocent people become victims—even raped or sometimes killed—because criminals are let out of prison before the end of their sentence. Every time an innocent person becomes a victim as a result of this, we—whether the prison governors, the Probation Service, Ministers or Parliament which passed the laws—carry a heavy responsibility for having wrecked that person's life.
	I remember a Member of Parliament asking me whether the Home Office had any money because he was trying to help to set up a sports centre for people in his constituency. I replied that the Home Office did not have any money. He said, "It's a funny thing, isn't it, that when you try to do something to prevent people offending you can't get anything, but once they have offended and are sent to prison, there are all the facilities available to them?".
	Why is it that we have so much crime? Over the past 40 years, despite all the worthy efforts that everyone has made, the position has become immeasurably worse. Now we have women and girls doing it. Only on Monday, the Daily Mail reported that gangs of four year-olds are doing it. Schools find that children often become uncontrollable. The other day a young boy punched a pregnant teacher in the stomach. Teachers often find that they cannot cope with the viciousness of the pupils and, if they take any action, they often find that they themselves are accused of breaking the law.
	A doctor's surgery near to where I live has a notice saying, "Please do not be aggressive to the Staff. We are doing our best". The accident and emergency departments of some hospitals have a police post within them in order to protect doctors and nurses from aggressive patients. Why has all this happened? The solutions seem almost impossible. Everything that people try does not seem to work.
	Yet it does not have to happen. Look at Singapore. It has the lowest crime rate in the world. It is a crowded island but you can walk out at night; you can go into the tube, at night or during the day, and feel completely safe. You never see a policeman. Admittedly, when you arrive you are given an immigration form to complete which states, in clear red letters, quite simply,
	"The penalty for importing drugs is death".
	I expect that that slows some people up. But if the country is without drugs and without the misery that drugs produce, is it not the better for that? The circumstances of Singapore may be different, its culture may be different, but so are the results.
	I have always thought that the power of television has had no small part to play. Agatha Christie's murders were always jolly good fun—Who Dunnit? But when you get murders and stabbings on the television, with all the details being shown of how to do it—knives being held at people's throats, blood going all over the place, people lying on the floor being kicked by a gang in the stomach and in the head—I defy anyone to say that that does not have any effect on people and that it does not put ideas into their heads.
	The power of television is enormous. That is why industry spends millions of pounds each year trying to influence people's ways of thinking into buying its products. But you can equally influence people's ways of thinking in other directions. Great responsibility for the effect of what is and is not put on the television lies with the television companies and their producers.
	In the end, I come back to the real difficulty. How do we bring up our families? How do we teach our children? How do we put them into a society of good influences?

Lord Fellowes: My Lords, I am especially grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for initiating this debate. I must begin by declaring my interest. Last autumn, I had the honour to take over the chair of the Prison Reform Trust from the noble Lord, Lord Hurd. Since then I have endeavoured to learn as much as I can in a short time about a subject in which I have always been interested but whose problems I see becoming less and less tractable. The only certainty I have acquired in my all-too-short education is that prison reform is not an option, but an absolute and urgent necessity. I am delighted by the encouraging signs that the Home Secretary has come to the same conclusion, at least as far as concerns the size of the prison population.
	I need hardly underline the urgency. The figures, in all their horror, speak for themselves. So, too, do the banner headlines in some newspapers calling for more and more prisons to be built, and for more and more prisoners to be locked up in them. What is left unsaid is that from those prisons, under our present regime, would issue more and more young people, 76 per cent of whom, as we heard, would re-offend within two years. Is that really the way to deal with crime?
	There are, rightly, many who tell us of overcrowding in prisons and its evils, of drugs in the prison system, of the lack of purposeful activity, of the number of people held on remand and their treatment, and so on. There are critics, also often with justice, of the Prison Service—that body of people who, by and large, are dedicated and professional, and broadly committed to the cause of reform but whose standing can be so easily tainted by one incident or one poorly-administered gaol.
	I should like to concentrate today on an aspect that I have found especially shocking and moving in my visits to prisons; namely, the number of sufferers from mental illness who are, by any humane standard, quite wrongly held in prison. They should be held in establishments that are designed to treat them, to look after them, and, if possible, to make them better. A supposedly comprehensive National Health Service should surely provide such conditions, both for those who require security and for those who pose no threat to anyone except, all too frequently, themselves. It is a gross imposition on the prison system to ask it to care for them instead—a job for which it is unqualified and ill-equipped, and for which it is not funded.
	Of course funding is, as so often, at the root of the problem. But while the NHS declines responsibility for these people and the prison system, now stretched to the limit, bears the burden, those wrongly imprisoned continue to suffer. I shall use only one further statistic as an example: 10 per cent of sentenced young offenders in prison and 8 per cent of those on remand suffer from serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia. The prison system is simply not designed to cope with that, try as it might—and it does try.
	This is callous treatment of those for whom we should feel nothing but compassion. The present situation is bad for them, bad for other prisoners, bad for the members of the Prison Service who are required to look after them, and an undeserved blot on the reputation of a prison system already in grave difficulty. I hope that we in the Prison Reform Trust can do something to put it right.

Lord Chadlington: My Lords, the topical debate so brilliantly introduced by my noble friend Lord Elton—I join others in thanking him for bringing the debate forward—searches for the virtuous circle of reduction in numbers and reduction in costs both of crime and of prison. A few months ago, when speaking on a Radio 4 programme, the Governor of Bullingdon addressed the issue in a stark manner. He said:
	"We know that if drugs were taken out of the system, out of the equation, that Bullingdon would be half empty. So if we can do something to cut down on drug use, we can do something to cut down on the amount of inmates that actually come into places like Bullingdon".
	The governor's views are graphically supported by the statistics. According to the research that we have undertaken at Action on Addiction (where I am chairman), in collaboration with the National Addiction Centre that we co-fund, 60 per cent of all crimes in the United Kingdom are now drug related. The experience of the police confirms that 57 per cent of those in custody last year admitted to taking heroin in the past month, while 52 per cent admitted to taking crack cocaine and 13 per cent admitted to taking cocaine. Those found guilty of crime readily recognise that drug-taking and crime are causally connected. Nearly 50 per cent—something over 46 per cent—believe that their addiction caused them to commit the crime.
	Heroin is a major factor in many of these cases. For 25 per cent of the men in prison, heroin addiction was a major problem before imprisonment. Although there is only one woman for ever 20 men in prison in the UK, some 50 per cent of those women had heroin addiction problems prior to their imprisonment. The National Treatment Outcome Research Study (NTORS) showed that 655 drug users, mainly heroin addicts, committed 70,000 crimes in the three months pre-treatment.
	The litany of these statistics could be continued, but that would serve little purpose. Whether the percentage of addicts committing crimes is slightly more or slightly less matters little in the context of this debate. What matters is this: if we could substantially reduce the number of people addicted to drugs and manage more effectively those whose addiction proves unbreakable, we would reduce the level and cost of both crime and prison. So how do we do it?
	I wish to suggest a five-point agenda to the Minister. In doing so, I acknowledge, like other noble Lords, that much good work has been accomplished, particularly in the recent past. However, I believe that much more is possible in several specific areas. The first of these is research. We just do not know enough about drug addiction and the behaviour that it fosters. At present, 75 per cent of the UK drug budget is spent on law enforcement and the prevention of drug trafficking—laudable activities. But Customs and Excise estimates that it only intercepts 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the drugs coming into this country.
	I believe that there is a real need for a private/public fundraising partnership to raise matched funds to provide research into the causes of addiction, especially in the very young, and the relationship between that addiction, criminal behaviour and the appropriate medical treatment. Action on Addiction—and, I am sure, other addiction charities—would co-operate enthusiastically with the Government in such a programme. We are woefully light on such scientific, defensible and robust research on all these issues. We are literally flying blind, and putting the problems out of sight behind locked and barred doors.
	Secondly, we need well-documented case studies, which show that treatment works. Perhaps I may give noble Lords an example. We know that heroin addiction directly causes acquisitive criminal behaviour. However, when we treat heroin addiction the levels of criminal behaviour drop markedly—not always by 100 per cent, but certainly by 75 per cent to 80 per cent. Once in treatment, this change in behaviour is almost immediate; indeed, often within the first month of methadone treatment.
	Thirdly, we need more information on the comparable costs of treatment versus imprisonment. We know already that methadone treatment is roughly 30 per cent of the costs of imprisonment. But we need to expand the toolkit of such treatments, particularly with regard to crack cocaine, to agree the full range of comparable costings. Fourthly, I acknowledge that the new drug treatment and testing orders are a welcome development. They are an effective alternative to prison. However, I cannot help but wonder whether those processes should be administered by those with primarily criminal justice skill sets and interests. Could not this be more effectively delivered through the NHS?
	Finally, my fifth point relates to the post-release period, recidivism and overdosing after a prison sentence. Release from prison is a time of high risk of relapse. Relapse leads to crime, crime to prison. We need better pre-release planning for addicts to make the transition into a world where drugs are available. We need the transition to be less traumatic and more manageable. We also need to provide help for the family and friends of an addict returning to life in the outside community. For example, we could pilot test pre-release methadone maintenance programmes and provide overdose training for inmates, family and friends, including, perhaps, supplies of naloxone.
	The secret to unlocking the virtuous circle, for which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, searches, is to be found in addressing the drug issue and drug-caused criminal behaviour. To do that, we need more research, preferably through private/public partnership, backed by specific case studies. Treatment will reduce costs, but we need to expand the toolkit of treatment. Can we make the drug treatment and testing orders even more effective? Finally, can we reduce recidivism by preparing addicted prisoners more effectively for the outside world?
	All that will reduce the level and cost of crime and the size and cost of the prison population. The programme also has the distinct added advantage of addressing the key fear of every parent, whatever their social or economic background—namely, that drug abuse will blight the lives of their sons and daughters.

Lord Dearing: My Lords, as so often, I find it a great privilege to listen to debates in your Lordships' House and I rise with considerable diffidence. I shall offer some thoughts on reducing the numbers who commit crime and the numbers who, having committed crime and suffered imprisonment, return to crime.
	I venture to make a contribution because of some remarks made in a debate on 11th March by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, whom I see in her place. Like the noble Lord, Lord Elton, she said that it would be much more sensible to spend £5,000 to £6,000 on a child at school rather than £25,000 on an adult in prison. She went on to say from her experience as a magistrate in juvenile courts that by the time a young offender is first tried for a criminal offence, he or she almost invariably—I think she said 99 times out of 100—has an established and irreversible practice of truancy associated with disruptive behaviour at school. Does not that give warning signals that are identifiable in school before children get to a juvenile court? We should respond to those warning signals.
	We spend £2,300 a year on our children in primary schools and £3,700 a year on older children in secondary schools. That is the lowest of any of the G6 countries. For example, it is 50 per cent less than in Japan or the United States. There is a clear economic case for increasing expenditure, but I am concerned with human lives and the wellbeing of our civil society. We need to raise our expenditure on those children and young people when we see the gathering clouds to the kind of figures that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned. They need to be given caring time and teaching time, particularly in the last year at primary school, which is the last chance before they move on to the open seas of a secondary school where, instead of having a class teacher who is the good shepherd, they are on the high seas, moving from teacher to teacher. We all know that there are great dangers in the first year of secondary school. Most children, unless they are able, regress in adapting to the new world. How much more is that the case for those children who have a genetic inheritance, an environmental inheritance or a family background that does not equip them with that other stability to enable them to navigate a passage?
	My first suggestion to the Government—which will not help David Blunkett in his sea of troubles today, but which will deal with the causes of that sea of troubles—is to increase their investment in such children in primary and secondary schools.
	My second suggestion concerns those who are already in prison. We know that on release they have the disadvantage of a criminal record when they look for a job. In the great majority of cases, they also have an educational deficit. For many of them, 90 per cent of jobs are said to be closed. No wonder they regress back into crime with those difficulties facing them. However, when they are in prison for more than a short sentence there is an opportunity to re-engage in remedying the deficiencies of the investment in their intellectual and emotional capital and equipping them to be better parents and better partners through education.
	One of the first thoughts that occurred to me when I was the chairman of the University for Industry was that distance learning is the way of getting into prisons and to individual prisoners. I am glad that the Home Office is now running an experiment in four prisons using that material, with a view to expanding it to 100. However, that is only one device. There are some evil men who cannot be rescued and who are best in prison, but the great majority have something that can be rescued. It is imperative for our society to reduce the figure of 57 per cent returning to prison. We must give those men and women a chance through education.
	That costs money. I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, the other day with a thought on the money side. We could give prisoners an incentive to engage in learning by saying to them, "Chum, let's talk this through. Suppose you commit to this learning programme and suppose you succeed. We would be prepared to think in terms of reducing your period of incarceration because you have equipped yourself better and done something useful with your time". If it cost £25,000 a year and the prisoner got six months' remission, that would chop £12,500 off the bill, which is a very good return for a small investment. What is more, it would reduce the chance that they would come back, which is another return on the investment. There is an economic as well as a social and human concern that justifies thinking again about our approach to education in prisons.
	To sum up, I have two thoughts to offer the Government. Because the warning signs are so evident early on, they have an opportunity to anticipate and to seek to remedy the risk that young people will move into crime by following the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and spending £5,000 a year now rather than £25,000 a year later. Secondly, to the extent that that does not succeed, we should invest in people in prisons in the expectation that there will be some return, because they will be enabled to come back into society better equipped to contribute to it.

The Earl of Dundee: My Lords, I join in congratulating my noble friend Lord Elton on introducing this debate and providing its focus, which connects reduced measurements for crime with those for the prison population. As background to that focus, the first anomaly concerns value for money when our own prison service is compared with others elsewhere. We spend less than our European partners on health and education, but we spend much more on prisons. Yet our recidivism level has not been decreased as a result of increased expenditure. Nor has it been decreased below the European average. My noble friend highlighted this inconsistency when he compared costs and measurements between ourselves and Europe.
	Secondly, there is the anomalous relationship between custodial and non-custodial sentences. We have seen the introduction and steady application of non-custodial sentences. Yet these have failed to effect a proper reduction in custodial sentences. They have even co-existed with a large increase in the number of custodial sentences and a large increase in the number of prisoners, from 46,000 in 1991 to an estimated 73,000 by July 2002 and a predicted figure of 83,000 by 2008. Despite the availability of non-custodial sentences, there are still far too many both below and above the age of 17 who are in prison for minor crimes and who should not be in prison at all. In particular, it is still the case that far too many young people are detained. In the majority of cases, the detention of young people is as futile as it is counter-productive.
	Thirdly, paradoxically enough, there is even the worrying anomaly, or at any rate its prospect, which relates to the pursuit of much better practice. This arises from current government plans for the Prison Service, the police service and new sentencing guidelines for courts. Much of this planning is to be welcomed. Equally, however, a great deal of it may not have been sufficiently thought through in order that it can lead to better rather than worse results.
	Recently, however, the Government appear to have expressed all the right sentiments. Within prisons, they seek to address systematically the task of rehabilitation. Their aims include better education, improved employability and reduced drug and alcohol dependency. However, such schemes will work properly only if the number of prisoners is reduced; otherwise, resources will remain too over-stretched for prison staff to fulfil all these objectives.
	Regarding the police force, a real improvement in value for money will depend upon a genuine increase in detection rates. Sadly, these have deteriorated from 45 per cent in 1971 to 25 per cent in 2000. For those crimes now of greatest public concern, such as burglary, theft and robbery, detection rates have even fallen below 20 per cent. The Government say that they will increase police numbers. Unfortunately, that alone will not necessarily increase the efficiency of the police force or its detection of crime.
	There are a number of proposals and aspirations for altering the approach and direction of court sentences. Ironically, it is just where these may now appear to be particularly balanced and helpful that they could prove instead to be particularly damaging and unhelpful. In other circumstances, weekend prisons, for example, now advocated by the Government, might well prove to be effective if they did not exacerbate—which in our case they would—the burden of an already overstrained Prison Service. In theory, while any measure of co-ordination between police, courts and prisons on crime and its cost control is only too desirable, in practice much of what we have heard so far under the heading of co-ordination, unless it is thought through much more carefully, may threaten to make matters worse.
	How then should the Government and the criminal justice service proceed to make matters better, and a lot better? The key may well be the terms of reference of this debate and, within that context, the guidance from so many noble Lords who have spoken today. Clearly, each of the services—whether it be the courts, the police or prisons—can deploy measures from a wide selection of available means. The first point, therefore, is that the three services should act in concert to a far greater extent and seek to deploy combined measures to achieve the same purpose. That goal is as outlined by my noble friend Lord Elton: to reduce the level and cost of crime and thereby the size and cost of the prison population.
	Secondly, our criminal justice service should be prepared to adjust far more than it does to evidence from elsewhere. Not least is useful evidence disseminated through the various research institutions associated respectively with the noble Baronesses, Lady Stern and Lady Linklater, and my noble friends Lord Fellowes and Lord Hurd, all of whose excellent contributions we have heard today. Within the United Kingdom there is the guidance that comes from the Scottish criminal justice service. Per head of population, and within the context of this debate, considerably better results are now produced in Scotland than in England and Wales. Among many public servants who have assisted that process I should like to mention the current chief inspector of the Scottish Prison Service, Mr Clive Fairweather.
	As already indicated, guidance can also come internationally and from a number of European states. Curiously enough, and despite their recent civil war, certain states in the former Yugoslavia already reveal encouraging criminal justice results which in several respects stand to give good guidance to ourselves and to other European states. Two such are Slovenia and Croatia. The Croatian service provides a clear example. It has comparatively low numbers of prisoners per head of population, and it demonstrates comparatively high levels of civilian prisoner rehabilitation. As chairman of the UK parliamentary group for Croatia, and as a Council of Europe parliamentarian, I was able to introduce our own Home Office overseas service to the Croatian prison service. This has led to the establishment of a training centre by Zagreb for the training of prison governors and other staff.
	In summary, current poor results from criminal justice lower our reputation for competence nationally and internationally, as they undermine confidence and morale within our communities. The Government's intentions to do much better are to be welcomed. As yet, however, their prescriptions may not have been sufficiently thought through. Within the police force, and whether or not it increases, detection rates must improve. From the courts, effective non-custodial sentences must replace a significant proportion of custodial ones, particularly for young people. Then, within the prison population itself, already thereby much reduced in size, re-offending rates may at last begin to fall through a new competent delivery of rehabilitation and a new sense of hope and purpose given to prisoners.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes, said that the Prison Service should not be asked to look after the mentally disordered. Some three or four years ago, when he was at the Home Office, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, estimated in answer to a Starred Question that 40 per cent of the prison population were officially classified as mentally disordered. Mental disorder is of course a broad category, but it clearly includes the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill, such as schizophrenics, as the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes, mentioned. Noble Lords will be aware that I should declare an interest as the father of a mentally handicapped daughter, now aged 21, and also as the honorary president of the National Society for Mentally Handicapped People in Residential Care. I speak with less authority about mental health, but some of what I have to say about mental handicap applies to mental health as well.
	One of the main reasons for this unfortunate state of affairs in our prisons is that many of these individuals are forced to live under community care without sufficient support when they could be far happier, better cared for and cheaper to support if they lived in a village community, of which there are excellent examples, or some other suitable residential provision. This damaging process can begin at school when mentally handicapped or ill children are forced into mainstream schools without adequate help when they would be far better educated at a special school. I regret to say that the signs are that the Government's new Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Act 2001, with its shift towards mainstream schooling, is already showing signs of making the situation worse, as many noble Lords said it would when it was being passed.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams, agreed at the time of his answer that it would make sense for the Home Office to sit down with the Department of Health to look at the problem to which I and the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes, have referred. In subsequent correspondence, it was agreed that the problem could not really be addressed unless social services, the Department for Education and the Treasury also contributed their areas of expertise to the discussion. I mention the Treasury because village communities and other residential provision are not only the preferred option for the majority of families with a mentally handicapped relative but are also very care effective and cost effective. Yet they are under threat from local health and social services which prefer to keep control of their clients under community care even if that care is sometimes gravely inadequate with the result that these people end up in prison.
	I ask the Minister whether any progress has been made towards the joined-up government to which I have referred? Have the Home Office, health and social services, the Department of Education and the Treasury yet sat down together to address this important aspect of our prison population? If not, will the Minister do his very best to encourage it?

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, we come to the concluding part of the debate. I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Elton. His record in terms of dealing with the criminal justice system and young people is second to none. At least four other noble Lords with Home Office experience have participated in this debate. That includes two former Home Secretaries. Against that I see that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is the lone fielder for his side. It would have been so nice to hear the reformist views of his Back-Benchers, who do not appear to be present today. However, I am not trying to make a political point because this is a serious subject.
	No one can fail to argue that there is a crisis in our prisons. It is for that reason, and the failure of the criminal justice system to address that problem, that the chairs of the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Prison Reform Trust—I was delighted to hear the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes—the Penal Affairs Consortium and myself as chair of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders wrote to the Home Secretary. We state:
	"The Prison Service is again facing a crisis of overcrowding, on a scale which it has not seen for 15 years. Apart from the prospect of again having to use police cells, the Service has to deal with higher levels of stress among staff, and to face a higher risk of disturbances among prisoners. It is less able to ensure the safety of staff, or of vulnerable prisoners among whom ethnic minorities, women and juveniles are especially at risk. It is prevented from providing the constructive programmes which can help to reduce re-offending and which the Government and the Youth Justice Board are rightly keen to promote. The situation will become more serious as offenders are brought into the system as a result of increased rates of detection and conviction. Simply to build more prisons is a wasteful and short-term solution.
	No government can responsibly allow such a situation to continue for more than a few weeks without the prospect of early relief. We welcome the emphasis that the Home Secretary and his Ministers have placed on the need to use non-custodial sentences for more non-violent offenders. We consider that the Government must now take immediate action to prevent any further increase in the prison population, and to reduce and then hold it at a stable and manageable level".
	Will the Minister arrange for a copy of that statement to be placed in the Library so that other noble Lords have the opportunity to read it?
	The degree of disadvantage and distress among the young offender population has been emphasised by a number of key studies in recent years and was clearly identified by a number of noble Lords in this debate. In 1997 the Chief Inspector of Prisons produced a thematic report on young prisoners. This showed that over half of juvenile prisoners had a history of being in care. Over half had been excluded from school, many more had regularly truanted and two-thirds had no educational qualifications. Two-thirds had been unemployed before entering and one in five had no idea where they would live.
	Similar results were found the following year, 1998, in a NACRO study of juveniles entitled, Wasted Lives. Some 86 per cent of the sample had been school absentees, truants or had been excluded; 46 per cent had no skills or qualifications; 60 per cent had unstable living conditions; 60 per cent had experienced family conflict and 37 per cent had been neglected or abused. Other studies have found a high level of mental health problems among young offenders in custody.
	The first and most important way of reducing the number of young people in custody is to prevent them from getting into trouble in the first place. I welcome the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, in that regard. Preventing youth crime must involve tackling the social factors which so clearly contribute to the criminal behaviour of persistent young offenders. The evidence shows that every pound spent on schemes to provide support for families under stress saves £6 in costs to the care and welfare system by reducing the number of children becoming delinquent, welfare dependent or being taken into care. Every £1 spent on pre-school education programmes involving parents in disadvantaged areas saves £7 in later costs of delinquency, drug abuse and welfare dependency. Young offenders commit three times as many offences during periods of unemployment as when they are in a job or training.
	Drug prevention education programmes for primary school children which empower them to resist peer pressure result at the age of 14 in more negative attitudes to drugs and a lower likelihood of having used illegal drugs than other children. Youth activity programmes for at risk young people in disadvantaged, high crime areas can cut different types of crime by between 25 and 75 per cent in local areas. We need more investment in all these areas of social crime prevention.
	The second way of reducing crime is to prevent reoffending by young people who have offended. This means using effective supervision programmes to tackle offending behaviour. The most effective programmes involve highly focused work on attitudes to offending, develop empathy with victims, help young people to restrain impulsive and aggressive behaviour and to resist peer pressure, train them in practical skills and offer them help in tackling drug and alcohol abuse. These programmes are more effective when carried out in the community than in custody, but, if offenders are sent into custody, such programmes carried out in prison can also reduce reoffending substantially on release.
	There is a great deal of evidence of what increases reoffending after custody. Released offenders who have not received education in basic skills are 40 per cent more likely to reoffend than those who have. Unemployed ex-prisoners are twice as likely to reoffend as those who get and keep a job. Homeless ex-prisoners are two-and-a-half times as likely to be reconvicted as those with homes to go to. Drug dependent offenders who return to drug use commit five times more offences than those who enter drug treatment programmes. Released prisoners without family support are between twice and six times more likely to reoffend than those with support from a family. We therefore need a much greater investment in the resettlement of prisoners as a central part of crime reduction policies.
	In all of this education is crucial. Some 60 per cent of the prison population is below level 1 in basic skills, which rules them out of over 90 per cent of new jobs. Those young offenders who are at the higher end of the intelligence spectrum often have no qualifications, which makes it much harder to get a job and role in society commensurate with their abilities. Overall, 80 per cent of young offenders under probation supervision have no qualifications whatsoever. We therefore need a carefully planned strategy to provide an education programme which can assist in this exercise. In short, a strategy to reduce the prison population by reducing crime must include a strategy for prevention, a strategy for effective community supervision and a strategy for rehabilitation which combines work on offending behaviour with practical resettlement help.
	Our statement to the Home Secretary which I mentioned earlier sets out necessary conditions for success. They include: strong and unambiguous leadership at national level from government, the courts and the police, as well as from the prison and probation services, in promoting the new approach and in "talking down" the prison population, as well as promoting the strength and efficacy of alternative sentences; strong local support and a sense of "ownership" from communities and from the courts, police and those outside the criminal justice system whose contribution is essential to the resettlement of offenders; funding arrangements which are reasonably generous and flexible, which are not too bureaucratic or prescriptive and which allow some discretion and leadership for local managers and stakeholders; and a stable prison population, and stable caseloads, which are within the capacity of the Prison Service and the probation service and of the accommodation and the programmes that they can provide.
	For those conditions to be satisfied, mechanisms must be developed that will provide strong leadership and arrangements, nationally and locally, that enable sentencing practice and the provision of resources to be planned together. There have been several recommendations, including the establishment of a criminal justice consultative council and an extension of area strategy committees. They have never fully performed that role but they or their successor bodies might still be able to do so.
	Other structures have been added over the years, such as the Youth Justice Board, the various formations for strategic planning within government and the correctional services board. Their development has, however, been piecemeal and ad hoc, and the time may be coming when their structure should be comprehensively reviewed. That would fit in with Lord Justice Auld's proposals for restructuring some of those bodies.
	So far, we have seen the Government's strategy of being tough on crime. Is it not time now to deal with the causes of crime, which so many noble Lords have discussed?

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Elton on initiating this important debate.
	It is said that, "The true cost of crime is more than the sum total of its parts". Few would doubt that, when people feel unsafe in their streets and homes, communities suffer both economically and socially. The greatest social cost of crime is that it acts as a catalyst for the disintegration of communities.
	Crime destroys communities. It brings fear to neighbourhoods and leads to a siege mentality. As well as frightening the old and vulnerable, it makes neighbours suspicious of neighbours. Crime gives a signal to the public that the streets are unsafe. They gradually withdraw from neighbourhood activities and associations. The more that we withdraw from our neighbourhoods, the more the criminal takes over. That is a downward spiral that we now need to address by working to rebuild a neighbourly society.
	A neighbourly society is the most important defence that we have against crime. A neighbourly society is built on strong and supportive relationships within families, between neighbours and throughout the wider community. A united, concerned and vigilant community not only guards against the attacks of the established criminal but turns young people away from the path of crime.
	But what chance does the neighbourly society have when the young learn that thuggery goes unpunished while good people live in fear? How can we expect communities to form and flourish when the streets are overrun by vandals and drug dealers? We need to understand that crime and community are two opposing forces. Crime has weapons at its disposal—above all, violence and the threat of violence.
	In the face of such a threat, the peaceful community can only retreat, ceding more ground to the criminal and exposing young people to values that are wholly opposed to those of the neighbourly society. Thus, neighbourhoods decay; the young are corrupted; people who can, get out; and people who cannot live blighted lives. All of that happens because decent people are afraid.
	Crime is not just about the headline offences of rape and murder, or even the more common offences of mugging and burglary. It is about the everyday crimes, conveniently filed away under the term "social disorder": graffiti, vandalism, petty theft, fly-tipping, drug dealing, intimidation, bullying, racial abuse, the corrupting influence of gangs and the underlying, but entirely viable, threat of violence against anyone who stands up to the wreckers. Yes, people do of course fear the headline crimes but in many neighbourhoods there is another kind of fear, which is closer to despair and born of the knowledge that we must limit our lives or become victims anyway; that the street is owned by the criminal, not by the citizen; that vandals can do what they will, even if everyone knows who they are; that thugs may torment their neighbours and only retaliation guarantees a decisive police response; that, as my noble friend Lord Elton said, the gang is a stronger influence on our children than the school; that in the front line against fear no one is on our side; and that we are right to be afraid.
	This is a struggle between crime and community. It is a struggle that the community is losing—the evidence of defeat can be seen most starkly in Britain's poorest neighbourhoods. There is something desperately wrong with our society when the people who we put in the front line against fear are those who are least able to stand up to the thugs—the poor, the very old and the very young. They need someone to fight for them, not just holding the line against fear but taking back the ground that has been lost to the forces of disorder.
	Who will take on that role? We believe that it must be the police. What we want is the kind of policing that takes back the streets from the muggers and the drug dealers and makes them safe for the decent, law-abiding people of this country. We call that "neighbourhood policing", and it is the foundation on which we will rebuild the neighbourly society.
	We believe that neighbourly policing is critical. That means that we need policemen walking the streets, patrol cars patrolling small areas on a continuous, 24-hour basis, and teams that are ready and available to move in behind the "beat cops" and the patrols to tackle crime on the street. But that is not enough.
	We believe that the criminal justice system needs to change. The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was right. There is not much point in catching criminals if it takes months to conduct trials and if they are bailed back on to the streets to commit more crime during those months. We need to find means of instilling a sense of urgency into our criminal justice system.
	Our prisons are another problem. Fifty-eight per cent of all prisoners are caught re-offending within two years of release. For prisoners under the age of 21, the record is much worse—75 per cent of all young offenders who are sentenced to custodial sentences are caught re-offending within two years. It would be otiose of me to attempt to suggest why that may be so, when my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell has already done so with eloquence and conviction.
	The figures about our prisons are simply unacceptable in a civilised society. How can we accept that a young person, once a criminal, is always a criminal? How will we ever have safe streets and a neighbourly society if we continue to accept it? I agree with my noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley, who pressed the need for education and training within prisons and for counselling prior to release. The Motion calls attention to the cost of the prison population. The crisis of overcrowded prisons has led the Lord Chief Justice to call for judges to bear overcrowding in mind when sentencing, and the Home Secretary has announced plans to extend the home detention curfew scheme, which was discussed by my noble friend Lord Windlesham.
	Under the proposed changes, those serving less than 12 months would automatically be released on the scheme, and the maximum length of early release with tagging would be increased from two to three months. However, it has been reported that prison governors say that they do not have the resources to implement the scheme and anticipate being blamed for any re-offending that is committed by those who are freed before the end of their sentence. That undermines the fundamental principles of criminal justice. When a judge sentences a criminal, it is the responsibility of the Home Secretary to ensure that the criminal in question can serve the sentence in question. That illustrates why the Home Secretary should be engaging in properly co-ordinated policies rather than moment-to-moment "initiatives". That is not responsible government.
	In the next few months, Conservatives will bring forward radical proposals for reform of the youth justice system—proposals that are designed to take young criminals off the conveyor belt to crime. We also need radical proposals to prevent young people from getting on to the conveyor belt in the first place. To do that, we have to have effective neighbourhood policing and a fast, effective court system. We have to break up the gangs when they are committing crime and we have to prove to young people that crime can and will be stopped in its tracks. We have to clean up our neighbourhoods, in which graffiti, fly-tipping and vandalism have reduced the quality of life to a level at which crime seems natural. We have to make a reality of co-operation between the police, schools, local authorities, the Drug Advisory Service and other agencies, to spot the youngsters who are most at risk of becoming criminals, and to intervene effectively before they get on to the conveyor belt to crime. Nor will the state be able to do everything that needs doing.
	A great part of the responsibility for rebuilding our communities will have to be borne by volunteers, charities and by what my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell called "active citizens". Conservatives believe in active citizenship; they always have done.
	In the next few months, as we come forward with specific policy proposals on neighbourhood policing and reform of the criminal justice system, we shall also bring forward specific policies on the voluntary sector, to widen and to deepen voluntary effort to lead our young people away from the conveyor belt to crime.
	In conclusion, this brief debate has attracted 19 speakers. It is an important debate and one to which I believe we should return. However, if we are serious about reducing crime, why is it that only three Back-Benchers—not one from the Labour Back Benches—contributed to the Second Reading debate on the Proceeds of Crime Bill, a Bill that is intended to make a real difference? It is a Bill that introduces new powers and enhances existing anti-terrorism measures to crack down on terrorist finance and organised crime. It is about fighting the drug barons and deterring those highly organised criminals who are responsible for and who are driving a culture that is doing so much damage to our society— serious crime that in one way or another touches us all, particularly drug related crime. I entirely support the five-point plan of my noble friend Lord Chadlington for fighting drugs.
	As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester said, we have a duty to our young men and women who are educational failures. I agree with so much of what has been said about education and its importance. I agree with other noble Lords that we must go further upstream if we are to keep our children—our future—away from crime. We must look to the beginning, to parenting, and build from there.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I join in the general praise for the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for putting this important debate on our political agenda and for stimulating a wide-ranging debate. We have heard an impressive range of contributions. I tried to make some notes of what noble Lords said. I was greatly impressed by the breadth of interest expressed and the range of subjects touched upon. Many plans of differing numbers of points have been put forward. We had a nine-point plan from the noble Lord, Lord Hylton; a five-point plan from the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington; a three-point plan from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester; and I have probably just listened to a 10-point plan, and much more, to be delivered in the future. I look forward to that.
	It is important that we have such wide-ranging debates so that we can—not depoliticise—see where the areas of consensus are and find ways of usefully progressing. My understanding of what has happened over the past five or six months is that we have begun to develop a much more grown-up approach to the debate on law and order, the size and shape of the prison population and where we are going with the criminal justice system. The better informed that debate, the better we shall be able to tackle some of the wide-ranging and difficult matters that have been raised .
	I shall not try to summarise what every noble Lord has said but instead pick up some of the points that have been made. I shall also try to deal with one or two specific points. One big issue is the importance of education. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that he would concentrate on education. That was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. We should increase the level of education expenditure so that we prevent the circumstances in which crime develops among people with low levels of skills, low ability and low confidence.

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Does he agree that even when a child is in full-time education he or she spends only 27.5 per cent of his or her waking hours in school?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I have three school-age children. I have not checked the percentage of time they spend in school. My guess is that the noble Lord is not far off the figure. They receive urgent instructions from their father and mother for the rest of the time when they are in waking mode.
	The Government are clearly committed to reducing crime. The widely respected 2001 British Crime Survey showed that overall crime in England and Wales has fallen 21 per cent since 1997 and that the chance of becoming a victim of crime is now at its lowest for 20 years since the survey began. All noble Lords will agree that that is welcome news and reflects well on the hard work of the police and their partners in tackling crime across England and Wales.
	However, arresting more offenders and thereby reducing crime does have clear consequences for the criminal justice system. On Friday 22nd March 2002, the prison population was 70,243, the highest ever. At one level we should seek to take no pride in that fact. It is symptomatic of a wider range of problems and of failures and pressures within our society. Although recent rises in the prison population are likely to have been due to increased police activity since Christmas and a rise in the custody rate, the Government are strongly committed to finding effective solutions to the rising prison population to ensure that sentences are more effective in addressing the aims of punishment, crime reduction and reparation—three important principles.
	The debate on sentencing has been well-informed by the proposals in the Halliday report, to which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, referred. The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, focused his comments on sentencing, as did the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes. We welcome the debate that that has stimulated. The report acted as a catalyst for the Government to examine what is done, and why, and the contribution that sentencing can make towards preventing and punishing offending behaviour. That includes means of giving offenders the chance of rehabilitation in the forms of custody and community punishment. We want to create an experience that puts individuals back on the straight and narrow and that helps them away from offending behaviour during the whole period of an offender's sentence. Halliday helps us in that regard.
	By creating what some call a "toolbox" of sentences that enable sentencers to gear the sentences that they impose towards correcting offending behaviour as well as punishing the offender, the new framework, towards which Halliday points us, should have much greater scope for reducing re-offending. In our view, for example, current prison sentences of under 12 months have nothing but a detrimental effect on crime. Evidence shows that an offender released into the community after he has served half his time in custody, with no support or effort at re-integration, is much more likely—as several noble Lords have said—to return to a criminal lifestyle. Custody plus, with its minimum period of six months supervision in the community, should correct that. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, made the point. Work undertaken to model the impact of the proposed sentencing reforms has shown that the new framework could bring considerable benefits in terms of crimes saved.
	The proposals under active consideration are designed to ensure that the risks of the prison population rising dramatically—as it has done recently—are minimised. During the debate, welcome has been expressed for the Home Secretary's reconsideration of the way in which the prison population is moving and the way in which sentencing can have an important impact upon that.
	One issue to emerge is the creation of a new generic community sentence to replace the current series of non-custodial sentencing orders. That will be made up of a menu of interventions from which the sentencers can select to meet the needs of a particular case. Thus it will be possible to put together an intense package of activities comprising a supervision programme and compulsory work and treatment that may form a more effective alternative to a custodial sentence. The flexibility that the new community sentence will provide will allow for that.
	Whatever the prison population pressures, in certain circumstances the Government have to be uncompromising in regard to serious and dangerous offenders. I suspect that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, was trenchantly making that point in his traditional way. There must be a real commitment to protect the public. That should take place in a secure environment, I think we would all agree. Communities must be protected from serious offenders. It is clear that sentencers require a range of clear and sensible sentencing options which enable them to deal effectively with offenders in a way which protects the community and reduces the risk of further offending.
	Reference was made to home detention curfew, otherwise known as tagging. There was active support for that from the noble Lord, Lord Carr. The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, described it as "extremely successful". The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, cast some question over her party's support for home detention being expanded, although in the past the Conservative Party has supported HDC, as it is known in the business.
	It is worth reminding ourselves just how successful the scheme has been. Over 44,000 prisoners have been released on HDC in the past three years with less than 2 per cent offending during their time under curfew. I do not think that we should underestimate the importance of that, particularly given, as a number of noble Lords suggested, the general recidivism rate among those leaving prison .
	The Home Secretary announced last week that from the beginning of May prisoners serving sentences of between three and 12 months, with the exception of those convicted of violent or serious drug offences and those with any history of sexual offending, will be released on HDC. Their movements will be electronically monitored for the latter part of their sentence unless there are compelling reasons not to do so.

Lord Windlesham: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord. Will that be automatic release or selective release?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, my understanding is that it will be selective. The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, attributed the success of the scheme to the focused way in which governors have advised on the release of particular individuals. "On a case-by-case basis" was the expression used by the noble Lord. I certainly see the strength of that argument. That has been the received wisdom in the past.
	I could take noble Lords through the process of monitoring. The detail is important. The monitoring centres are staffed 24 hours a day. The contract is managed by three private sector companies contracted to the Home Office. That process has been very successful and the public can have great confidence in it.
	Many practitioners have pointed to the positive effects of combining a curfew order with other community penalties. These include knowing that a person is not offending during curfew hours and bringing routine to what are often chaotic lifestyles.
	The Government have spent much time seeking to reduce levels of crime. We are committed to reducing the specific types of crimes which cause society most concern. These include acquisitive crimes, such as domestic burglary and vehicle crime, and violent crime, especially street robbery. I shall say more about that shortly. Since 1997, according to the British Crime Survey, domestic burglary has fallen by 35 per cent. That has been echoed by falls in police recorded domestic burglary which is down 30 per cent. Over the same period, vehicle-related crime has fallen by 24 per cent according to the BCS and recorded vehicle crime by much the same rate, about 22 per cent.
	Since 1998 the Government have invested in some 1,400 projects aimed at crime reduction. There are now some 686 more CCTV schemes and 250 anti-burglary projects covering two million homes. Those schemes are founded on best evidence from the UK. We have invested an extra £3 billion in the criminal justice system over that time to ensure that we adopt programmes and processes that work to cut crime.
	Reference was made to the numbers of police officers. Our record over the last few years has been second to none. The statistics demonstrate our commitment to the desire that we all have to see more police officers on the beat. By April 2004, policing will have benefited from record investment under this Government—a three-year rise of 21 per cent in cash terms, which is 11.8 per cent in real terms and 6 per cent in cash terms next year alone. That has already led to a record rise in the numbers of police now available to tackle crime. On 31st January, there were some 128,748 officers in England and Wales, 458 more than the previous record in March 1993. Between March 2001 and 31st January 2002 police numbers increased by 2.4 per cent. That is 3,066 officers. With the help of the recruitment funded by the Crime Fighting Fund our aim is to have a target figure of 130,000 matched and met by spring 2003. Civilian support staff are also at record levels. There were some 56,644 in post in September of last year.
	Despite this increased police investment and officer strength, and previous investment, the public is very concerned about rising levels of street robbery. We are determined to tackle this and to build on the Metropolitan Police's safer streets initiative. A new initiative is aimed at reducing the level of street crime in the 10 hardest hit areas of England and Wales. That programme will focus on curbing the rise in street robberies and will also tackle wider street crime as well as the adoption of fast-track prosecutions to raise the conviction rate.
	The 10-force street crime reduction initiative will be sharply accelerated to begin in April. It will be supported by a new cross-government action group to tackle any obstacles to cutting street crime. Chaired by the Prime Minister, the street crime reduction initiative provides an opportunity for the police and all those involved in the criminal justice system to identify immediate short-term solutions to deliver better results ahead of the Government's broader reform package.
	The initiative is bringing forward plans already in progress to ensure co-ordinated action across government. It builds on local crime reduction plans already in place and takes advantage of the record number of police officers now established.
	Street crime is concentrated on a few, largely urban areas, and 10 police forces deal with 82 per cent of all robbery in England and Wales. Mobile phones are now stolen in some 28 per cent of robberies, compared to 8 per cent just three years ago. This increase is partly due to the 600 per cent increase in mobile phone ownership since 1995.
	The police and criminal justice agencies will work together to target and fast-track all robbery offenders. The initiative aims to increase the detection rate for robbery cases; increase the number of offenders charged and brought to justice; speed up the process between arrest and sentence; and deal with offenders effectively at every stage of the criminal justice process and ultimately reduce the number of robberies in the 10 force areas.
	The key feature of this initiative is the involvement of departments and agencies across the whole of the criminal justice system. Each government department, the Department for Education and Skills, the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, the DCMS and the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions will all play their part in having an impact upon street crime and seeking to tackle it, whether through supporting truancy sweeps, putting in place drug treatment provision, ensuring that training and employment opportunities are there for young offenders or ensuring that there are diversionary schemes, such as the SPLASH scheme referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, or ensuring that local authorities have the resources to improve security on transport, and so on. They will all play their part in attacking what is a profound problem.
	The cost of crime to our society is estimated at roughly £60 billion per year, which represents some 7 per cent of GDP. As many of your Lordships have said, the cost is not just in financial terms, but also in terms of the impact on communities, the division and despair that it brings, and of course the physical, emotional and material impact of crime on its victims. Those obviously are not just deserving of our sympathy, but deserve most support. For that reason, the Government have considerably increased their aid and support, not just through victim support schemes but to victims of crime themselves.
	The desire was expressed from all sides of your Lordships' House that we tackle effectively youth crime and break the cycle of offending which often leads to prison, if unchecked. It is sadly the case that in London 40 per cent of street robberies are committed by 10 to 16 year-olds.
	A plea was made, especially by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, for a more diverse range of treatments than simply incarcerating people in youth offender institutions. Of course, we are fully signed up to that and have adapted a much more strategic approach—using targeting and so on—ensuring that when young offenders are picked up, they do not just meet the full weight of the criminal justice system but are helped, guided and advised. Of those picked up, 96 per cent are in the first instance given warnings and non-custodial sentences, but the public must feel protected.
	Early in our first term, we took the view that it was important that there was greater certainty. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 introduced a range of new interventions and punishments to enable early, targeted intervention to deal with anti-social behaviour and divert young people from crime. Among those schemes were child safety orders, anti-social behaviour orders, parenting orders, local child curfews and so on.
	The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, made an especially strong plea for support for parents. That is how we envisage parenting orders working. Between July 2000 and June 2001, 1,224 such orders were made. Signs from our initial research are that parenting orders give parents greater support, encouragement and confidence in dealing with the young people in their care to direct them away from a life of crime.
	I have mentioned many initiatives that the Government have rolled out. We intend to maintain those initiatives, but we have no blind spots about looking at new ways of working or new methods of controlling crime in our society. Diverting people away from crime is clearly one such important strategy.
	I have enjoyed the debate; it has been most useful and timely. We in government must press ahead with the range of initiatives that I have outlined to reduce crime. We must bring those initiatives together to bear on this major issue of our time to reduce crime and also, ultimately, to reduce the size and cost of the prison population. The Government are committed to ensuring that the delivery of justice will be enhanced by the many measures that I have described. I commend them to the House as part of the answer to ensure that we control and contain our prison population, turn out more useful young people in future and, in as much as we want prison to work to produce the better society to which we all aspire, ensure that prison works well.

Lord Elton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that full reply. In giving my warm thanks to all those who have contributed, I shall start with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, because I know that he has a train to catch. In particular, I thank him for his reference to the DIVERT Trust. I did not declare an interest because the DIVERT Trust has now merged with the RPS Rainer Foundation and, until I have had a discussion with its chairman and chief executive in a few days time, we are uncertain what the relationship will be.
	The Minister will no doubt want to draw the attention of his noble friend Lord Rooker to our debate. The first thing to point out is that we have heard from my noble friends Lord Chadlington and Lord Pearson and from the noble Lords, Lord Fellowes and Lord Dholakia, that 60 per cent of prisoners are under the influence of heroin when they offend; 40 per cent of them are mentally ill when they are in prison; and 60 per cent of them are below level 1 educationally before they are released. That is a fruitful area for investigation and the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, in a most important speech, provided a sensible idea of what might be done about it.
	Many speakers—about half of them, I think—made comparisons with what is occurring in foreign countries, saying that all the way from Croatia to Singapore and America, things are going better than here. There is scarcely time to pick out the points from every speech to which we should pay attention. In particular, I thank my noble friend Lord Carr for lending distinction as well as experience to this debate. I spoke about education without warning him because I thought that it was one area about which I might know a fraction—but only a fraction—more than he did.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, was extremely kind in what she said about me. I must say in humility and honesty that her contribution in the field has been about 10 times that of mine. I therefore return her compliments magnified. My noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell evoked a most poignant and unhappy memory of the stresses in a crowded prison system—I visited so many when I was a Minister with responsibility for the Prison Service. I hope that the Government will heed the warning of the immense damage that that does to the rehabilitative effort.
	It was inevitable that this debate would concentrate on reaction to people after they become criminals. In fact, we should go further upstream and react to them before they become criminals. I should like to touch on one point in the Minister's speech. The generic community sentence must draw back from the position that obtained when a community sentence was seen as a soft option in which little actually happened. It must be something tough and it must work.
	I can see that the noble Lord on the Woolsack is ready to leap to his feet and that the sand is running out of the glass. I therefore thank your Lordships and beg you to think that it is better to have fewer criminals than more prisons and more policemen—and to put your money where your mouth is. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Regulatory Reform (Golden Jubilee Licensing) Order 2002

Lord Davies of Oldham: rose to move, That the draft regulatory reform order laid before the House on 28th November 2001 be approved [15th Report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee].

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, if the order is approved, it will amend the Regulatory Reform (Special Occasions Licensing) Order 2001 and will relax permitted licensing hours for two hours after their normal end on 3rd June this year. I can assure the House that the order is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
	This year, 3rd June is the Bank Holiday Monday immediately preceding the national holiday granted on 4th June, when Her Majesty will attend St Paul's for the Service of Thanksgiving in respect of her Golden Jubilee. The order to be amended is the order approved by the House last December, which provided extra hours during last year's New Year's Eve. Public houses, bars and restaurants normally close at 11 p.m. on Monday. If the order is approved, the normal closing time for on-licence premises and registered members clubs on 3rd June will therefore be 1 a.m. Nightclubs will still be free to open later if they are normally permitted to do so by the licensing justices. Their closing time will continue to be to be 2 a.m. in most parts of England and Wales and 3 a.m. in the West End of London.
	The order also provides for the police, local authorities and local residents to seek orders from the licensing justices and magistrate's courts restricting the extra hours provided by the order for the purposes of preventing potential disturbance or disorder.
	In December, my noble friend Lady Blackstone gave the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, an assurance that future orders of this kind would restore the right of licensees or registered members clubs to appeal to the Crown Court against decisions by magistrates to impose restriction orders. This order fulfils that undertaking. The one-off net saving to the hospitality and leisure industry resulting from the order is estimated to be £8.9 million. This arises because of the removal of the need to apply for permission from the courts to open later on the night in question—the night of 3rd June 2002.
	I want to take this opportunity to express my thanks for the work of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of this House. The work that the committee has done in scrutinising the order has been exceptionally good. I welcome the committee's decision to recommend it to the House. I am sure that extended hours will add greatly to the enjoyment of many people during the period of the Golden Jubilee celebrations. I commend the order to the House. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft regulatory reform order laid before the House on 28th November 2001 be approved [15th Report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee].—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that explanation. Perhaps I may begin, as ever, by reminding the House of my unpaid interest as patron of the Restaurant Association of Great Britain. The members of the association will benefit from the making of the order, which will extend licensing hours for an extra two hours over the period 3rd to 4th June.
	I concur with everything that the noble Lord has said with regard to the celebration of the Jubilee. It is an enormously important occasion for us all—and it should have a significant and welcome impact on tourism at that time. Like the Minister, I take note of the fact that the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform, in its 15th Report, is satisfied that the amended order is in a form which is appropriate for affirmative resolution today.
	Let me make it clear that I support the making of the order. However, there are matters that should be raised today as a result of the two amendments which the Government had to make to the draft order as a result of the concerns raised by the Select Committee of another place in its 5th Report, at paragraphs 26 and 27. As a result of those concerns, perhaps I may take a moment or two to set out why I believe that the Government need to learn from the glitches that have found their way into this order and into the New Year's Eve order, so that we do not face these problems again.
	The first concern raised by the Select Committee was the old one. Is there enough time? Is enough time being allowed for the system of restriction orders referred to by the Minister to be able to operate properly?
	When we debated the special occasions licensing order on 6th December 2001, I commented on the problems that flowed from the late tabling of that order. The Minister has referred to the fact that I raised the issue of the Government having to withdraw the right of appeal by licensees. That was a blot on that particular statutory instrument. The Minister is right. His noble friend Lady Blackstone gave an assurance, and I am happy to be able to welcome the fact that she has put that assurance into effect in the order that is before the House. It is now just as it should be in that regard.
	A second problem arises from the late tabling of the special occasions order which has also now hit this one; namely, will there be enough time for the magistrates to hear applications for the restriction orders? In its 5th Report, the Select Committee of another place noted that there had been problems with the operation of the special occasions order. When that order was passed by this House in December, the Minister reported, by reference to the Select Committee report, that the,
	"licensing justices were willing and able to deal with any applications for restriction orders in the time available".
	I welcomed that assurance. I felt able to cut short my remarks—I chopped them by about three-quarters—and agreed to the making of the order. We all went away thinking that all was fine.
	We now learn, however, that in practice there was not a 100 per cent success rate in this matter. From the report of the Select Committee of another place, we learn that in at least three licensing districts the licensing authority's final session before the new year took place too soon after the order came into force for it to be possible for applications for restriction orders to be made. It was therefore not possible for local residents—or for that matter, local authorities or police forces—to make use of the provisions which were designed to ensure that the necessary protection was maintained.
	The Select Committee of another place therefore commented, at paragraph 27 of its report, that it was "dismayed" that the assurances that it had been given by the Government had turned out to be false, and said that it would pursue the issue with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Select Committee asked the Government for certain assurances about the procedure so that the problem should not be repeated in the provisions for this Jubilee order.
	We are told in the reports from the Select Committees in both Houses that the Government have amended the order so that licensing justices will be able to hear applications for restriction orders at any time, not merely on the dates normally set aside for licensing sessions—when justices with particular expertise in regard to licensing normally sit, and the public know from long experience that those are the set dates. It is fortunate—and we should thank the magistrates—that they have been prepared to get the Government off the hook by being so flexible and helpful.
	That sounds like a pragmatic solution; but, as so often, pragmatism leads to other problems. The problem now, because the order comes before the House too late for the normal procedure to be followed—that is, of the appeals being made on the normal dates on which licensing magistrates would sit—is: how do people know what the new procedure is, and that they can go along on any day and make their applications?
	We are told by the Select Committee of another place in its 7th Report that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport gave the committee details of the publicity strategy that it intends to follow in order to make sure that those who are likely to be affected by the opening hours during the Jubilee period will be aware that they can, if they wish, apply for a restriction order, and that the details of how to go about it will be made clear.
	The Select Committee was obviously satisfied with the plans put forward by the Government. The problem is: how do we see them? I made inquiries with the Printed Paper Office to find out whether there was an open record of what the publicity would be, and the PPO could find no reference to it. A footnote in the Select Committee report states that there is an Explanatory Memorandum. But neither I nor the Printed Paper Office could find any public record of it. That is not a very good start for a publicity strategy. Can the Minister give the House a flavour of the publicity strategy that will be adopted. Will he give an assurance that the Explanatory Memorandum with regard to the publicity will be placed in the Library in both Houses.
	I can only repeat what I said in December. All this goes to show that it is vital for the Government to get their act together in regard to these deregulation matters, so that the normal procedures that people expect to happen do happen, and that there is a proper time within which people can make applications for restriction orders, and then time for the licensees affected by them to appeal against them if it is proper to do so.
	There is no doubt that after the successful passage of this order through the House—which I hope will be the case—the Government will lay an order in due course in respect of next New Year's Eve. The reason why I have taken some time over this matter is to say: please let us get it right next time.

Viscount Falkland: My Lords, we on these Benches accept the order and thank the noble Lord for explaining it so clearly. The licensing laws in this country are complex, and these kinds of changes are equally complex. I shall have to read the noble Baroness's speech tomorrow in order to understand it fully. I admire the erudition that she has demonstrated.
	Behind licensing in this country is a cultural wish on all occasions of celebration to imbibe alcohol. The noble Lord rightly said that a great many people get enjoyment from that. But it must be balanced against the likelihood of a great deal of inconvenience, if not worse, to the public services—whether to the police, nurses or ambulance workers—on this and other such occasions.
	My noble friend Lady Barker has just pointed out to me that the date in question is the day after England's first World Cup game, so the imbibing of alcohol is likely to be even more intense than has been considered thus far. Of course, I wish everyone well who is arranging this event. I shall be abroad, as will many others who can afford it. That said, perhaps we shall learn something more and perhaps the culture of drinking in this country will change as a result. We can but hope.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I thank the two noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. To the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, I say that I cannot imagine why on Earth he should think that an increase in the consumption of alcohol might attend England's World Cup fixtures. I understand that at least one of them will be played at 7.30 in the morning. One would have to be a hardened and committed drinker to be massively concerned to drink at that time. I hear what the noble Viscount says, and I recognise that we may all have cause for celebration as England progress satisfactorily through the early stages of the World Cup. From what I can see, the early stages look like being the most difficult.
	I appreciate the welcome given by the noble Viscount and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns. I shall address several important points. Of course, I can give an assurance that the memorandum will appear in the Library of both Houses; I apologise for the fact that that has not yet happened.
	I understand the anxieties expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, but this order is not quite the same as the order relating to the new year, when there is an extensive increase in the hours. The noble Baroness will recognise that we are discussing an extension of the hours only from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock, as far as concerns licensed premises. That means that the impact on the wider public who might be critical of the measure is reduced that bit more. Even so, I recognise the importance of the points that the noble Baroness made, and I can assure her that it is intended that anyone who wishes to object to the extension of a licence should have the opportunity to do so.
	I am happy to relate that I am not close to those who are responsible for the PR operation of this department. I hasten to add that I am not, in fact, close to those in charge of the PR operation of any department. The further away that one can be at present, the happier and more secure one feels at the Dispatch Box. I assure the noble Baroness that steps will be taken to ensure that the wider public knows its rights in relation to the legislation. The order is designed to enhance general public enjoyment and celebration of the Jubilee events. I am sure that we all concur with that objective. Secondly, the order saves the industry a considerable amount of money because, otherwise, every part of it would have to apply separately and at considerable cost.
	As was said on both Front Benches opposite, the order merits support. On that basis, I commend it to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Regulatory Reform (Voluntary Aided Schools Liabilities and Funding) (England) Order 2002

Lord Davies of Oldham: rose to move, That the draft regulatory reform order laid before the House on 20th November 2001 be approved [15th Report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee].

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I beg to move the second order standing in my name on the Order Paper.. The order is the first from the Department for Education and Skills to be brought forward under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. It demonstrates the department's commitment to regulatory reform and, in so doing, allows us to reform fundamentally a system that has become increasingly bureaucratic and unworkable since the basic arrangements were introduced in the Education Act 1944.
	The order is designed to simplify the arrangements for funding premises-related work at voluntary aided schools in England. Liability for funding such work is currently divided between the governing bodies of such schools and local education authorities in what is recognised to be a complicated way. It requires much detailed negotiation between the various parties, including departmental officials. That time could be better spent on more important matters such as continuing the drive to raise standards. The details are so complex that the relevant scrutiny committee in another place invited officials to make a presentation to help provide a better understanding of what is entailed. I am pleased to say that the presentation was well received by the committee.
	The package of changes will place more responsibility on the governing bodies for all of the school buildings and playgrounds. It will enable the governors to have more involvement in decisions affecting those buildings. It will also mean that governing bodies can use the available funds for a wider range of purposes. That is particularly important at a time when the amount of capital grant that we are making available to the voluntary aided sector has increased fourfold from what it was in 1996. That level of investment has, of course, been matched for other schools. The additional responsibility brings an increased financial commitment for the governing bodies of voluntary aided schools.
	It is an essential feature of the voluntary aided sector that its schools make a contribution towards the cost of work on their premises. That principle will be retained under the new arrangements. However, in recognition of the increased financial liabilities falling on the governing bodies, we have proposed that their normal contribution should be reduced from its current 15 per cent minimum rate to 10 per cent. That will ensure that the changes will be broadly cost-neutral, in overall terms, to voluntary aided governing bodies. In order to help ensure cost neutrality, we are also introducing an option to pay grant at up to 100 per cent in exceptional cases.
	I thank members of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform. They spent considerable time on scrutinising the proposals and were able to recommend the proposals to the House. The committee accepted that our proposal to increase the rate of grant support to governing bodies of voluntary aided schools relieved a burden, within the meaning of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. The committee noted that it would therefore appear to be possible to use the Act to change entitlement rules in a wide area of welfare funding. The vigilance of the appropriate committees in both Houses will guard against any improper use of the power.
	As a consequence of the more simplified system that the order will introduce, we can also improve the way in which we fund routine repair and maintenance to voluntary aided school buildings. That will have two major benefits. First, it will enable us to place more of the funds directly into the budgets that are delegated to schools, giving greater local autonomy. Secondly, the processes will be more consistent with those for other types of school, although the essential characteristic of the voluntary aided sector would, of course, be retained.
	We have also worked with the committee in the other place to reassure it on several issues, including the insurance implications and our ongoing commitment to pay grant at the normal rate in certain prescribed circumstances. We consulted widely on our proposals and received overwhelming support for them. The committees in both Houses commended us on the way in which we consulted on the reforms. We worked hard with the Churches, which have a key role in the greater part of the voluntary aided sector, and we are pleased that they asked us to introduce the changes as rapidly as possible. We also worked closely with the Local Government Association and the National Governors' Council to ensure that the proposals are workable and fair to all stakeholders. That extensive consultation has encouraged us to proceed with the proposal that the changes should be introduced with effect from 1st April this year.
	I must emphasise that the changes have nothing to do with the wider debate on faith schools. They are about reducing the burden of bureaucracy, simplifying a complex system and, in so doing, introducing policies that bring about greater consistency with other categories of school. The scrutiny committees have recommended acceptance of the changes on that basis.
	I realise that the timing of this debate does not give us much time to begin the process of implementing the changes. However, we have continued to keep all stakeholders—voluntary aided schools, the Churches, the National Governors' Council and the local education authorities—informed of our proposals. We have demonstrated to the committees that we are in a position to introduce the changes at short notice should the order be approved.
	Finally, the order applies only in respect of England. The National Assembly for Wales was consulted on the proposals and following responses to its own consultation decided not to seek any change to the law. I confirm that the terms of the order are fully compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The order was approved in another place on 12th March and I commend it to the House.

Moved, That the draft regulatory reform order laid before the House on 20th November 2001 be approved. [15th Report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee].—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the purpose of the order. As the Minister outlined, the order comes to this House under the deregulation and regulatory reform procedure. Its purpose is to amend the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 to simplify the liability and funding arrangements for premises-related work at voluntary aided schools, which the Minister outlined in detail.
	I noted that in the first report of the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee of another place, the department was invited to amend the order extending the proposed amendments to Schedule 22 to the 1998 Act to include all "excepted buildings", which the department has since done.
	The Minister also stated that submissions of the officials were received by the committee. However, I also noted that the committee took the department to task for poor drafting of the order and that it was not at all impressed by the plea from officials that they had to draft the order in a hurry. That excuse was, and remains, unacceptable. This is a serious point, for if the deregulation and regulatory reform procedure is to work, the accuracy and the quality of the drafting is critical.
	The House of Commons committee has been effective in securing improvements to, and clarification of, the order. For example, in paragraphs 22 and 23 of the report of 5th March, the committee was concerned about the definition of an "alteration" in order for a school to attract grant-in-aid. The committee was, however, satisfied with the Secretary of State's assurance that, for example, where a damaged roof has to be repaired, while it will constitute a necessary capital expenditure, it cannot be described as an "alteration" as such, but will nevertheless qualify for a grant at the maximum rate set out in the order because the underlying principles of the existing legislation will be retained.
	I join the Minister in thanking the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee of this House for its work on the order. As the order has proceeded through the various committees to this House, the Government have responded positively to the recommendations and I therefore agree that the order should be approved.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the order and agree to it being approved. As both noble Lords mentioned, it has been before the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and has been extensively examined by the Commons Select Committee on Deregulation and Regulatory Reform. As the Minister noted, it is to come into effect on 1st April 2002, so there is not much time for implementation.
	However, as the Minister also noted, it has been extensively discussed in a number of places. In some senses, it is an interesting initiative because it is the first time that we have seen the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 applied to legislation from the DfES.
	Anyone who has been a governor of a voluntary aided school will know that there are enormous problems in getting maintenance carried out and funded because of the difficulties of deciding who is responsible. Where governors find that they are responsible for an unexpected cost, even with the 85 per cent support—which will now rise to 90 per cent—coming from the Government, it can be difficult for them to find the necessary money. Stories abound of how badly damaged a window and its frame have to be before liability passes from the LEA to the governors, and when a minor repair to a roof becomes a major one with the ensuing change of responsibility. The evidence from both the Lords and Commons committees, which have worked on the order, indicates that by shifting responsibility for certain items from the LEA to the governors, and at the same time raising the threshold of support from 85 to 90 per cent, the system will be made better and more manageable. We greatly welcome that.
	It is interesting also to look at the order in relation to the deregulation initiatives which are to come before us in the Education Bill. The Minister mentioned that. The Commons report indicates the way in which the regulatory reform order has worked. Rigorous consultation is required to meet the needs of the order. For example, the DfES—the DfEE as it then was—established a project board of interested parties some three years ago. A written detailed consultation document was produced nearly a year ago and sent to 1,654 recipients. All schools were told that the proposals were available. There had been previous consultation documents on aspects of the proposal. It has been a very good consultation process, setting an example of what one would like to see.
	In that respect, the Education Bill is being sold as a deregulatory Bill. It shifts legislation from primary to secondary legislation. The Minister will know that some of us have doubts about whether that is a good idea. The DfES memorandum which we have been given with the order notes that the process—the consultation that took place within the regulatory reform order—helped to build awareness of our proposals and achieved strong consensus among key stakeholders.
	The reason given for not tackling great swathes of the Education Bill through regulatory reform orders is that,
	"it is quicker and less burdensome on the Department's resources"
	to use primary legislation. Some of us wonder whether that is good enough. Is it not better to pass good legislation through the regulatory reform order procedure rather than to pass rushed and bad legislation through a Bill of which parliamentary procedures do not allow sufficient scrutiny?
	Generally speaking, and despite those quibbles which perhaps relate more to the Education Bill than they do to the order, we welcome the order and would like to see it put into effect.

Lord Dearing: My Lords, earlier today the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester said that he had to leave to serve a higher authority. Therefore, I thought that it might be appropriate for me to ask him what he would have said had he been present. He confirmed that there has been detailed consultation, in particular with the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches. The dioceses are geared up for implementation, if the order is passed, on 1st April and he warmly commends the order to the House.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions to our short debate. I shall not follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, in discussing the virtues of the Education Bill. We shall have an opportunity to do so in the near future. As we might be here for a somewhat protracted time if we talked about the advantages of the Bill in terms of deregulation, I shall confine myself to the order.
	I thank the noble Baroness for producing the answer I would have given to the main point introduced by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman. I refer to the fact that at an early stage the committee criticised the order in terms of its draftsmanship. However, we have succeeded in carrying out the most extensive consultation exercise, to which the noble Baroness kindly made reference. Due to the length of the consultation, we were faced with the question of whether we could meet the tight deadline of making the changes on 1st April.
	I entirely accept the criticism, evidenced elsewhere, to which the noble Viscount has every right to refer. I plead the obvious point that the consultation exercise having been so extensive things were somewhat hurried to meet the deadline. However, we have achieved the best of both worlds in that we have hit the deadline and been able to consult sufficiently widely to obtain the comments of the committees of both Houses with regard to the order.
	On that basis, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, that on this occasion he can act as our messenger to higher places. It is not often that I feel that there is a higher place than your Lordships' House, but I recognise the force of the noble Lord's remarks. We greatly missed the contribution of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, but he had a more than adequate substitute and I thank him for his commendations. I commend the order to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Dignity at Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
	The aim of the Dignity at Work Bill is to counteract bullying at work and to enshrine good practice into law. The main objective is to prevent bullying, but if it does take place, then the Bill provides redress. In opening the debate, I shall explain what the Bill covers and why it is needed, as well as give noble Lords a flavour of what bullying is and what it does to those who are on the receiving end.
	However, before I do so, I wish to place on the record my thanks to those who have helped me prepare for this evening. In particular, I wish to thank Chris Ball, a senior official of the union to which I belong and for whom I used to work, Amicus, formerly the MSF. Here I declare an interest. Amicus has been at the forefront of highlighting bullying at work. Since 1994, when the union launched its campaign against bullying, it has pressed for it to be recognised as a workplace issue. Chris Ball is the expert in the trade union movement on this subject. I also wish to thank the Clerks in the Private Bill Office for their involvement and their invaluable advice and guidance in preparing this version of the Bill. Thanks should also go to the Lords Library staff for their help with research related to it.
	Turning to the Bill itself, Clause 1 confers the right to dignity at work on all employees and covers harassment and bullying which would constitute a breach of that right. It covers examples of bullying which are not inclusive, behaviour which should not be tolerated in the workplace and unjustified criticism which, if repeated, would breach the right to dignity at work. The reason for the emphasis on repeated action is because such actions could happen accidentally but, if repeated, they would fall foul of this legislation. The clause also covers situations with specific consequences: punishment or changes in an employee's duties and responsibilities to the employee's detriment without reasonable justification.
	Clause 2 protects an employee if he or she brings proceedings under the Act. Clause 3 gives rights to contract workers, a group of workers that is often forgotten. Clause 4 allows complaints by employees who believe that their right to dignity at work has been breached to be presented to an employment tribunal. Clause 5 provides for an employer's defence against such claims. It covers the employer's appropriate policy under the Bill and its correct implementation in line with Schedule 1. Clause 6 allows for compensatory payment by the respondent if the employment tribunal has found a case proven and gives advice from an employment tribunal to a respondent about prevention or reduction of adverse effects on the complainant relating to any breach of the right to dignity at work. Clauses 7 to 9 are supplementary and relate to interpretation, the Short Title and the commencement, which will be two months after the Bill has been passed.
	Schedule 1 deals with how the dignity at work policy will be implemented. Schedule 2 covers the consequential amendments to the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Employment Tribunals Act 1996.
	The Bill attempts to be fair to both employees and employers. In an ideal world, it would not be necessary. All employers would be good ones and would already have policies and practices in place which would prevent bullying in the workplace. But this is not an ideal world and employers are not all good ones. This Bill aims to correct those who are not.
	Bullying is not a new phenomenon, but it is only in recent years that it has been identified and rightly recognised as a workplace issue. As Angela Ishmael wrote in her excellent book, Harassment, Bullying and Violence at Work, published by the Industrial Society:
	"As employers move towards creating and maintaining a healthy working climate as a corporate priority, bullying and its effects have leaked through the organisations like a crack in a wall".
	Bullying is undoubtedly a great problem faced by many British workers. It affects all kinds of workplaces. I have known cases of bullying on the shop floor and in the office; in the voluntary sector, telecommunications, retail, catering, engineering, finance and insurance, the health service, manufacturing, universities and schools and the Prison Service. You name the workplace and bullying can be found. It is a very destructive force.
	It is difficult to put a concrete figure on the number of workers bullied, but an NOP poll conducted for a TUC conference on bullying at work suggested that a staggering 5 million working people in the UK had either been bullied in the past or were currently experiencing bullying. Of course bullying does not only have an adverse effect on employees. Employers are also affected by it. Bullying at work costs businesses in employee absenteeism through ill health and lost effectiveness. Professor Cary Cooper of UMIST, an acknowledged expert in the field, has estimated that 40 million working days are lost each year because of bullying. In financial terms, this puts the cost to industry at £3 billion to £4 billion annually. On top of that, it brings to the workplace low morale, poor working relationships and a general depression of spirit. That is hardly conducive to high productivity and quality standards. Bullying blights lives and causes immense and acute suffering and stress.
	In the course of the debate, we may be told that there are laws which adequately cover bullying at work. As a former trade union official, I would dispute that emphatically. In the past the UK Parliament has not focused on providing statutory protection against bullying at work. Instead it has concentrated on discrimination. That is fine when it comes to sex or race. But the laws covering sex and race do not adequately cover bullying. It is true that cases can be taken under the Sex Discrimination Act or Race Relations Act. But the great weakness here is that most cases of bullying cannot be shown to amount to sexual or racial harassment and therefore this legislation is not effective in that case.
	On the face of it, the health and safety Act can be used by those facing workplace bullying. But again that Act does not specifically mention bullying. It concentrates on the,
	"health, safety and welfare at work of all employees"—
	a much vaguer concept.
	As I know from my years as a health and safety commissioner, the Act is rarely found to be effective for bullying cases. Indeed, because there is no specific law relating to bullying or harassment in the non-sexist or non-racist sense, the only way for an employee to proceed to an employment tribunal because of bullying is to resign from his or her work and bring a claim of breach of contract under the heading of constructive dismissal. That cannot be a just and proper way for an employee to have to proceed in this day and age.
	The current laws are not only inadequate for the employee, they also expose employers to a wide range of liabilities without providing the legal tools or guidance to deal with potential bullying problems before they become serious. The existing laws do not help employers to deal with the problem of bullying in the workplace. At best they can provide only a certain financial compensation to an employee who by then has lost his or her health, job or both.
	I can best illustrate the absurdity and ambivalence of the law by telling the House of the experiences of two members of my previous union. A young man and a young woman worked in a London teaching hospital. Both received appalling treatment at the hands of their male supervisor by whom they were constantly undermined and their lives made a misery. The young woman's bullying and denigration also included unwanted sexual advances. At the same time, the supervisor embarked on a campaign to humiliate and reduce the standing of the young man by a series of mean and malevolent acts.
	They both went to the same internal appeal. The young woman was held to have been sexually harassed and the young man to have been bullied. Both sustained substantial financial losses as well as suffering emotionally. The young woman was advised that she had a sex discrimination claim which she lodged and eventually settled out of court. The young man had no legal basis for a claim and received no effective remedy for his very similar experiences. He would have had to leave his job had he wished to claim constructive dismissal, as I explained earlier. I believe that that highlights graphically why a new law is needed. If the Bill had been in place, both could have presented bullying cases and both could have received their just rewards.
	The Dignity at Work Bill supplements existing employment legislation enabling employers to send a clear message to all their staff that dignity at work must be respected and, if they act quickly and fairly, avoid claims and resolve issues in a way that promotes better workplace relationships and higher morale.
	I look forward to hearing the forthcoming speeches of your Lordships. I hope to receive a sympathetic response from the Minister. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen.)

Baroness Gould of Potternewton: My Lords, the House should be grateful to my noble friend Lady Gibson for reintroducing a Dignity at Work Bill, originally introduced in December 1996 by Lord Monkswell. However, I regret that it is necessary for her to do so. I believe that there has been clear evidence for many years now that unacceptable behaviour to employees in the workplace is widespread. Legislation is not only necessary but also long overdue.
	Most definitions of workplace bullying share three elements, all to be found within the Bill: its effect on the recipient, not the intention of the bully; the negative effect on the victim; and the persistence of the bullying. As my noble friend said, it covers many situations and can take many forms. It is that aspect upon which I wish to concentrate my remarks. It can cover unfair and excessive criticism, humiliation, public insults, the constantly changing or setting of unrealistic work targets, withholding information, undervaluing efforts and shouting and abusive behaviour. Bullying is a sustained form of psychological abuse, a gradual wearing down process that makes the individuals feel demeaned and inadequate, and hopeless not only within their own work environment but also in their domestic life.
	The recent research undertaken by the Manchester School of Management found that bullying was associated with a negative work climate, high workload and unsatisfactory relationships at work and often coincides with a change of management. That research, which was the first nationwide survey to be undertaken, covered 70 organisations with over 5,000 recipients, so it was a very substantial piece of work. It concluded that 10.5 per cent of people had been bullied in the workplace in the previous six months.
	What the evidence clearly showed was that there has been no decline in bullying since the 1996 report by the Institute of Personnel and Development. At that time, the IPD concluded that one in eight people had been bullied in the previous five years, that it was commonplace and that it was getting worse. There are many examples to show that that prediction was absolutely correct.
	Perhaps I may elaborate on some of the points made by my noble friend Lady Gibson. The Royal College of Nursing found only last year that up to one in six of nurses had been bullied. Its survey of 4,500 nurses showed that another member of staff had harassed 17 per cent of them in the previous year, and it is of particular concern that that proportion rises to 29 per cent among respondents from ethnic minorities. The serious spin-off is that one-third of those affected intended to leave nursing, which is tragic at a time when the Government are trying to recruit more nurses.
	At an NHS trust in the South East of England, 38 per cent of the staff reported experiencing one or more types of bullying in the past year. A survey conducted by the Grampian University Hospital Trust highlighted serious levels of bullying estimated by the unions to be 47 per cent. UMIST found that bullying was most common in the Prison Service and postal services, both at 16 per cent. In the average school nearly one in six teachers had been bullied in the past year. We have heard a great deal today and in the past couple of days, about assault by pupils. These figures refer to staff on staff and it is something which we must take very seriously.
	In the words of Professor Cary Cooper of UMIST,
	"the extent to which bullying goes on in British workplaces has reached phenomenal proportions".
	Increased pressure on staff and managers to meet targets, including unofficial targets, creates highly competitive environments where many individuals consider bullying as the accepted method of motivating staff and where harassment and bullying are seen as strong management and the most effective way of getting the job done. While victims are spread across all levels from shop managers to shop floor workers, 75 per cent of bullies are managers. That confrontational style of management, so often preached by management and business schools, has to be challenged.
	Many employees feel that they have to put up with such behaviour for fear of further victimisation or being labelled troublemakers. It would seem that while ever aggressive management is part of the organisational culture, people will continue not to challenge individual bullying behaviour.
	As my noble friend said, what these employers do not seem to grasp is that their behaviour can seriously backfire on them and that it is in fact counter-productive. They fail to understand that staff working in an atmosphere of fear and resentment do not perform well. Absenteeism through sickness increases, morale levels fall and staff resign. Workplace bullying has a significant effect on both mental and physical health which can lead to sleeplessness, back pain, panic attacks, depression, anxiety and other stress-related illnesses. Many millions of working days are lost each year because of bullying. Victims of workplace bullying take an average seven extra days off each year than those not bullied. This results in a significant loss of productivity in both financial and human resources.
	The TUC estimates that the cost of stress and stress-related illness is £5 billion a year. However, the CBI put that figure much higher and estimate it at £12 billion a year, which is about £500 each year for every working adult. That is surely something that we cannot sustain.
	In a Written Answer to a Question I submitted to my noble friend Lord Sainsbury, he made it clear that the Government were keen to create a culture where bullying is not acceptable, but that further research is needed to establish the real extent of the problem and how it manifests itself in the workplace.
	I accept that the establishment of the Partnership Fund which he mentioned is to be welcomed as is the development of management standards by the Health and Safety Executive. But I had hoped that he would mention and consider the question of legislation. I believe that it is only by specific legislation such as this Bill that we will be able to create an anti-bullying culture.
	In replying to the Second Reading debate in December 1996, in which I was pleased to take part, the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, acknowledged that there was a real problem, but that the concept of dignity at work was difficult to incorporate in law; that the effects of the Bill would be to make the law more complex and confusing. Rather, I believe that it is the complexity of the many current pieces of legislation which allows bullying to continue.
	I have never had the experience of my noble friend Lady Gibson in trying to work my way through employment law and I therefore cannot identify the interesting specific cases to which she referred. But I can look at and be bemused by the lists and lists of legislation which are supposed to have an effect in reducing bullying.
	For example, we have protection against sexual and racial harassment and discrimination, and against discrimination against the disabled. Employers have a legal responsibility under Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 for the health, safety and welfare of their employees. Under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, it is an offence to "intentionally harass, alarm and distress". There is the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, all of which can be used to challenge bullying at work. We need to add to this list the Employment and Race Directives under Article 13 of the EC Treaty, which we hope the Government will implement. No wonder it is possible to identify the wrong piece of legislation when you wish to challenge bullying by your employer.
	I appreciate that the Government may well be reluctant to impose more regulations on business and industry, but, historically, evidence has shown that specific legislation is often necessary in order to change the culture at work. The health and safety legislation and the Disability Discrimination Act are but two clear examples of that.
	I appreciate that there are many good employers with reasonable contracts of employment incorporating fair policies, but in 1996, when we had the previous debate, only 28 per cent of employers had adopted policies to overcome bullying. I am sure that that figure has increased but I do not know what it is today. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us. I hope that he will be able to say that it is 100 per cent and that this legislation is not necessary. But I have very grave doubts about that because there are still too many mediocre and bad employers.
	If employers took a responsible stance and we had the ideal world described by my noble friend, this legislation might not be necessary. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Legislation is necessary for those employers who have no official policy, who have aggressive management styles and who have no intention of tackling this serious problem themselves.
	I hope, therefore, as did my noble friend, that the Government will respond favourably to the principle of the Bill, if not to its every detail, and assist its passage through the House.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Gibson of Market Rasen not only on a timely debate but on the persistence she has shown in pressing ahead with the Public Bill Office and getting this far.
	Both of my noble friends who have spoken have presented incontrovertible evidence that there is a major, unresolved problem. My noble friend the Minister will not be surprised to hear that we think this Second Reading is appropriate and timely because it concentrates the mind on the light shed by this Bill on some of the quite tricky issues in the framing of regulations pending in the Employment Bill.
	As my noble friend Lady Gibson pointed out, the current approach, which relies on constructive dismissal, is not at all satisfactory. The question is whether we can pick up some of the ideas in this Bill and see what light can be shed on the problems in the debate on the Employment Bill. If I am stretching the procedures of the House by making this connection, I trust that I shall be allowed a degree of latitude because the dilemmas of employment law referred to by my noble friend Lady Gould are very much before us at the present time.
	Let me try to identify where the key issues lie. Others will, equally legitimately, view the issues through a different prism. However, tonight's debate could throw some light on the dilemma in the following way. On the question of bullying, we have, at first sight, two legs of the proposed statutory procedures: a grievance procedure and a disciplinary procedure. Of course, there will be a connection—if, for example, a grievance is put forward about the failure of an employer to trigger a disciplinary procedure. That, very typically, is where we would find ourselves under the new arrangements on an issue of bullying.
	Then there is the question of whether the procedure in that context should lean heavily on the matter being dealt with within the establishment, given the fact that the other route is to go straight to a tribunal. In the case of bullying, and a number of like issues, many trade union representatives would put a great deal of weight on having a satisfactory domestic procedure to correct the behaviour which is the subject of the complaint. I do not wish to move into the argument about the so-called "compensation culture". However, as my noble friend pointed out, constructive dismissal is not only a very blunt instrument; it also does not really provide what the person complaining about the problem would really like to see in a commonsense, although not perfect, world.
	But who will hold management to account if we have only this blunt instrument to use? Indeed, quis custodiet ipsos custodes, as they say in Wolverhampton. The procedural problem was raised only this Monday in Grand Committee on the Employment Bill. The issue was whether some matters are inappropriate for the 28-day delay in going to a tribunal. So the issue is how bullying is to be specifically dealt with in the regulations under the Bill. On page 7 of its code, ACAS concentrates on the issue being dealt with as a disciplinary matter. However, it can also arise as a grievance issue. It must not fall between two stools; but, as a statutory procedure, it is quite tricky to get right if, as a proper and legitimate goal, we want the procedure to deal satisfactorily with the matter for all concerned in the establishment in as many cases as possible.
	The topic strongly underlines the advantage—and, indeed, the necessity—of a degree of mutuality; in other words, joint ownership and joint commitment. Dignity is enhanced by trade union organisations, but we are not relying on that in this analysis. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that we need mutual confidence and a degree of mutuality, however one describes it, in the procedure.
	We are aware that some procedures are not perfect under the voluntary arrangements that obtain in many parts of industry, but we have a new opportunity here with the 3 million workers who believe that they have, potentially, some new rights coming in their direction through the Employment Bill. We must not let them down. I refer to the 3 million workers who have no protection procedures to assist them at present. A new focus will be provided—I take the analogy of the minimum wage—on the procedures to be covered as bench-mark minimum procedures.
	We do not want in any way further to open the door to those whose motive in advocating new statutory procedures is to deter ready access to the employment tribunals. However, there is undoubtedly a connection. Perhaps I may put the matter in more popular language: "If you don't want your dirty linen to be washed in public, let's settle the matter in the workplace". But on what terms do we settle, and what will be satisfactory as regards the procedures and the substantive outcomes of that settlement? That is the question upon which I wish to focus. I hope that my noble friend will find it to be a legitimate question. The only conclusion that one reaches from this analysis is that it requires Rolls-Royce procedures—if that is still an appropriate metaphor.
	As my noble friend Lady Gould has pointed out, some employers' organisations have often argued that all those matters are just burdens on business. That is a red herring—to put it in complementary terms to the way in which my noble friend put it—if the issue is a satisfactory domestic procedure versus an argument about how quickly you go on a legislative procedure to a tribunal. How can that be presented as an argument about burdens on business?
	I hope that in his response tonight and in his further reflections on the scope, my noble friend the Minister will take advantage of some of the ideas in this Bill when considering the outstanding dilemmas in the other Bill currently before the House.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I rise in the gap, if I may, to offer a few very brief words, having happily succeeded in reaching the House in time to give a warm welcome to the Bill of my noble friend Lady Gibson of Market Rasen. I congratulate her on a Bill that would lay a new legal foundation to the philosophy, of which my noble friends have spoken, that human dignity and rights do not end at the office door or the factory gates.
	In my submission, the Bill is particularly welcome for two features. The first is its concentration on the terrible problem of bullying, of which my noble friends Lady Gibson and Lady Gould have spoken so convincingly and on which our current law is so manifestly inadequate and confused. Even beyond the focus on bullying, I welcome especially a worker's right under the Bill to escape unjustified punishment and arbitrary change in his or her working life. I also welcome the right, so clearly set out, not to be victimised for pursuing proceedings for his or her rights to be enforced.
	All those features need to be significantly strengthened in the current Employment Bill, of which my noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall spoke so provocatively. At this stage of the night, your Lordships would not thank me if I followed him in pursuing the detail of that point. I merely say that that Bill is still in Grand Committee, upstairs in the Himalayas of Committee Room 4. It is in its eighth day. Those interested in these matters who have not had the pleasure—or, indeed, the perspicacity—to visit its proceedings should do so and should read Hansard carefully.
	I shall make only one comment on that. For all the other virtues of that Bill—and I insist that there are such virtues—parts of it are deeply unfair to working people and need to be improved. As my noble friend Lord Lea hinted, those issues inter-relate to tonight's Bill.
	The second feature that I particularly welcome is that this Bill would protect all workers who perform personal work or labour. It is not limited to the legally more restrictive technical confines of the common law contract of employment. The width of protection of our employment legislation, which is so valuably raised by my noble friend's Bill, is a central feature on the future agenda of labour law.
	So often today, those whose only way of feeding their families is the sale of their labour power, by hand or by brain, are spoken of as though they were merely items in a labour market, to be manipulated—

Lord Roper: My Lords, we all benefit always from the wisdom of the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, on these and related matters. But of course we do have a convention—that speakers speaking within the gap ought to restrict their remarks to four minutes.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I had thought that it was five minutes, and I had just reached the four-minute mark. I shall, if I may, just complete my last sentences. I may get rid of some of the punctuation.
	The Bill recognises the intrinsic humanity of the worker and initiates a domestic legal application of the first principle of the International Labour Organisation: labour is not a commodity. The worker is flesh and blood, and for all the defects that are now being suggested in current Bills, the Government should adopt this Bill.

Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, I very much appreciate the noble Lord giving way, but I should like to reiterate the words of the noble Lord, Lord Roper. I believe that gap speeches are meant to last only four minutes, and we are now into the sixth minute. I appreciate and enjoy the noble Lord's comments, but we are now into the sixth minute.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I shall complete the sentence, as I understood noble Lords wished me to do. I am sorry that the noble Lord is so anxious for me to cease my remarks. Perhaps he could get the Opposition to consider the Employment Bill.

Lord Rotherwick: My Lords—

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I am simply responding to the noble Lord's intervention.

Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, I am not anxious for the noble Lord to cease his remarks; I very much enjoy his constructive contributions. I am only asking for the procedures of this House to be followed. Thank you.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I imagine that the noble Lord's time is not counted as my time. However, I appreciate very much his enjoyment of what I say. I am very pleased to give him some pleasure for once.
	I end by finishing my sentence. I hope very strongly that the Government will take up this Bill; that we will come to its Committee stage and make a good draft even better, perhaps by involving union representatives rather more than they have been in the current draft; and that the Government take away this draft and come back to us and include that in their legislation. I am sure that that will give a great deal of pleasure to us and, I am sure, to the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, I begin by observing the hour of our discussion. I cannot help but wonder whether, were we fully paid employees rather than noble part-timers, we might by now be in contravention of one working-time directive or another. I should also declare an interest. I am a member of the Transport and General Workers Union.
	I am indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen, for bringing before us a Bill on this important and much overlooked subject, and for giving us an opportunity to hear some very powerful speeches—such as that made by the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn—on employment and the current rights and experiences of workers. Before dealing specifically with the subject of the Bill, however, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, for producing a Bill that is concise, to the point and clearly presented. It is such a refreshing change to consider proposed legislation that does not consist of endless Henry VIII clauses and rafts of regulatory powers. I hope that the noble Baroness will become an industry standard for her own benches.
	I read a great deal to prepare for this debate, everything from newspaper extracts to Hansard and the web. The more I read, however, the more I came to two realisations. The first was that, although I also regularly read employment law and personnel practice updates in the course of my employment, the issue of bullying had never featured in that reading. Secondly, I realised that, throughout the course of my working life in different organisations, things which I had witnessed were in fact bullying. I had never thought of that before. I understand that now and I appreciate the persistence of the noble Baroness in bringing this legislation before us. It is worthy of our discussion.
	Other noble Lords have referred to the work in 1996 of Lord Monkswell in steering his Dignity at Work Bill through this House. For the first time that brought attention to something which hitherto had been completely unrecognised. That Bill was the product of research conducted by the union MSF. The debates on that Bill in your Lordships' House were, as ever, informed and incisive.
	From those debates it became apparent that bullying in the workplace, although somewhat ill-defined, was widely understood, particularly by employees who had either experienced it themselves or had witnessed it happening to others. Those debates also began to set out the incidence of bullying at work. Other noble Lords have made reference to a study published by the Institute of Personnel and Development and mentioned some of the costs involved in this matter.
	The noble Baronesses, Lady Gould and Lady Gibson, set out in some detail the various pieces of legislation to which someone at present can have recourse if they wish to attempt to bring a claim for bullying. I refer, for example, to the Race Relations Act, the Disability Discrimination Act and so on. I shall not go through them all again. However, I want to pick up the question of why we need to have specific legislation on this subject. It has become clear to me in my researches that because of the absence of any specific bullying legislation a great many people dream up or invent reasons to recast what is actually bullying as something else. That is extremely bad for management. To call something by another name and to call it racial discrimination or sexual discrimination, for example, when it is just plain bullying does not help either the business or the culture involved.
	A couple of years ago I was on a training course led by a personnel manager. He took us through a number of different case studies in order to put across some points. He described one case study in a large statutory organisation. He came to the crux of the matter and asked, "What happened next? Let me rephrase the question and ask any of you who ever worked for the NHS what happened next"? Three people put their hands up and said, "She went sick". The lack of specific legislation on bullying and its recasting as something else breed a culture in some organisations which is distinctly unhelpful. There is a powerful case for disentangling bullying from other things.
	As your Lordships will know, the 1996 Bill foundered for two main reasons. First, it suffered the fate of many a Private Member's Bill; that is, death at the hands of the draftsman. The then government spokesman, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, took apart the wording of the Bill with all the relish of a Minister unveiling the fruits of the toil of parliamentary counsel. One of the merits of the Bill before us today is that many of those criticisms, principally those of definition, have been taken into account by the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson. Clause 1 of the present Bill which seeks to define behaviours which would be deemed to constitute bullying is much more tightly defined. However, there are one or two difficulties to which I wish to return.
	The second reason why Lord Monkswell's Bill met a swift end in another place was not the ill disposition of the then government, although, undoubtedly, that played a part, but rather the sense that specific legislation would be either an unnecessary burden on business or would fail to tackle the issue effectively. I suspect that there was also another factor although it was never explicitly stated; namely, a fear that the passage of such legislation would in itself lead to a rash of claims. The then government acknowledged that although bullying was a problem of some significance, its adverse effect on productivity, coupled with existing legal protection against explicit discrimination and protection on grounds of health and safety, for example, should suffice. Six years on we have another opportunity to assess the extent to which that strategy was correct and the extent to which there is a need for legislation now.
	A number of noble Lords have cited some of the studies and pieces of research which have emerged since 1996. I wish to mention just two. In 1998 Staffordshire University published research in which 40 per cent of those surveyed had witnessed bullying and 18 per cent had experienced for themselves what they termed bullying. That in turn sparked other pieces of research, the most interesting of which found that priests and clergy have been among those who have experienced that.
	The research by Professor Cary Cooper and Helge Hoel of the Manchester School of Management at UMIST was quoted extensively by the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. I want to discuss two further points about it. The first involves the headline conclusions of that research, which was entitled Destructive Conflict and Bullying at Work. It concluded that bullying thrives in a management culture where the loss of emotional control goes unmanaged; that good employers need a policy to deter bullying, which states explicitly that those who report incidents will not be victimised; and that bullying is often a correlation of autocratic, insensitive management styles, which need to be confronted and challenged. Each of those points should be readily understood by any employer who wishes to have a productive and thriving enterprise.
	Secondly, the detailed findings of that study tell us a great deal more. The percentages of men and women who had been bullied were roughly equal. Those who were victims were most likely to be aged between 35 and 44, to be white and on full-time permanent contracts. Although managers were most likely to be perpetrators, they, too, could be victims. The significance of that data is that they indicate that bullying is not confined to particular professions or sections of the workplace. It can and does happen to anyone, but it is most likely to occur when other poor management practices are taking place.
	That study defined the critical times at which bullying was most likely to occur. It cited factors such as periods of organisational change, the introduction of new IT systems, redundancy and restructuring. All of those are well-known pressure points in any organisation of any size. That valuable information is available now and the Government should be promoting it vigorously in order to enable employers to identify bullying and to take preventive or remedial action.
	As I said earlier, the Bill has benefited from previous scrutiny. Clause 1 confers a right to dignity at work and provides a detailed but not exhaustive list of behaviours. That list is helpful and necessary. On 8th April 2001, Richard Wilson of the Institute of Directors wrote an article querying the need for legislation. He said:
	"How would you distinguish between times when people do need to be criticised and encouraged to do better, and those when people are being treated in an unacceptable fashion?".
	There is plenty of relevant evidence from the world of education. Furthermore, in my field—social care—working definitions of abuse have been developed over the past 10 years. It is high time that employers caught up with many other fields and adopted the definitions in the Bill, coupled with the growing body of evidence from employment tribunals. In other employment matters, such as race and disability discrimination, employers are increasingly wising up to the fact that bad practice equals bad business. They should swiftly come to the same realisation about bullying.
	There is one point of ambiguity in Clause 1. Subsection (2) does not make it clear whether an employee can make claims against a company if the bullying is caused by customers or clients. I ask the noble Baroness to address that point and say whether such a situation would already be covered by an employer's general duty of care. That is important for organisations such the Benefits Agency, where the main incidents of harassment and bullying come from clients.
	Clause 5 offers a clear course of action that employers can take to avoid further action. Many noble Lords have cited the fact that at the moment the only redress for many employees is to resign and claim unfair dismissal. That is an expensive and wasteful process for them to have to follow. The Bill addresses a problem that is not new; it is increasingly common. It does so in a way that is practical, pragmatic and designed to promote good practice.
	I imagine that the Government may say that they do not want to place a greater statutory burden on employers. If that is the case, it is right for your Lordships to ask what the Government will do actively to promote employers to adopt a voluntary code of practice on this subject. What will they do to enable employers to recognise the problem and to deal with it? As one of the major employers in the country, what will they do to put their own house in order and to set the standard.
	It is high time that staff who are victims of bullying are given information and support to enable them to seek a way out other than resignation from situations that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, has set out, are often extremely damaging. This measure is commendable and we on these Benches wish the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, well, not just with this good piece of legislation, but with what, in reality, will be a longer campaign to educate employers to eradicate the scourge of bullying at work.

Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, on bringing forward this Bill of good clarity. There is no specific legal definition of bullying. Harassment is interpreted in UK law only in relation to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, as it implements the EC code. Employers have a duty to care for all their workers and a liability at common law under the following laws: the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations Act 1976, already mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
	Harassment may be considered to be discrimination under the following Acts: Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and, as again mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, the Employment Rights Act 1996; but the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which created a criminal offence of intentional harassment, and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which created a criminal offence of harassment and a right of damages for the victim, were not mentioned.
	What is the problem? When there appears to be sufficient legislation to protect workers, it is surprising that it has been acknowledged that almost universally workplace bullying is a problem. That was recognised by all noble Lords who have spoken. Research undertaken by UMIST suggests that almost half of all UK employers have witnessed bullying at work. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, also stated some figures from UMIST. The Industrial Society suggests that 270,000 employees in the UK take days off due to distress, which is probably caused by bullying or similar actions. Bullying may play a significant part in creating stress. Around six per cent of companies in the UK have specific anti-bullying policies, notably Littlewoods, BT and Liverpool City Council.
	Will more legislation tackle workplace bullying where past legislation has failed? Research undertaken by UMIST suggests that bullying is more prevalent in the public than in the private sector, as has been said by noble Lords. Bullying is at its highest level in teaching, in the Prison Service, and in the post and telecommunications sector. Autocratic and divisive management styles, high workloads and rapid changes cultivate bullying stress styles, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said earlier.
	Can the extra burdens on small businesses and the public and voluntary sectors be justified with more legislation? Large private sector employers with adequate resources can and do use cost/benefit analysis to underpin a business case to tackle workplace bullying. But it is questionable whether small businesses have adequate resources to carry out similar risk assessment. This is a complex and costly area for any employer considering the introduction of dignity at work policies. The employer should take into account not only that people who are being bullied have employment rights, but that those being disciplined for bullying also have rights. For instance, if an employer does not strike the correct delicate balance in addressing an employee over alleged bullying, that employee may feel that the employer has been heavy-handed and has tried to dismiss him or her and can make a tribunal claim against the employer.
	Can legislation be used surgically to solve a workplace problem without secondary effects? While there is an argument as to whether or not we want this type of legislation, it is worth bearing in mind what Jan Long, the clinical adviser at the Wiltshire and Swindon NHS Trust's staff support centre, said. He warns that accusations of bullying are already used to cover up poor performance. He goes on to state:
	"Once accused managers find themselves in an agonising situation where it is almost impossible to defend themselves. The knock on effect is that managers are finding it increasingly difficult to discipline staff. Sadly, this is especially true when dealing with sensitive situations—such as with members of minority groups".
	Another example is that of Mr Richard of the Institute of Directors who claims that any legislation is fraught with difficulties. He asks:
	"How would you distinguish between times when people need to be criticised and encouraged to do better, and those when people are being treated in an unacceptable fashion?".
	However, on the other hand, the TUC Secretary, John Monks, is calling for legislation to address workplace bullying directly. Mr Monks believes that this is the only way to ensure that every victim is protected.
	In conclusion, the Bill encourages businesses and organisations to develop their own dignity at work policies. Workplace bullying appears to be a widespread phenomenon. It is most clearly unacceptable. It is traumatic for employees and for employers, and damaging for the business in general. The aims of the Bill are admirable. We support the measures that aim to tackle bullying in the workplace and that raise public awareness of its existence. After all, if a company has a well-publicised anti-bullying policy, it can learn to recognise and then minimise the problem. However, it is unclear whether solutions lie in more legislation which possibly makes the situation more complex and confusing.
	We should all aspire to the universal adoption of good practices. Indeed, most people work best under such conditions. There is also a question of whether legislation could be used well by the public sector where the prevalence of "destructive conflict and bullying at work" is worse, as we have already said, in the post and telecommunications sectors, teaching and the Prison Service. However, it is unclear whether such legislation would be appropriate to the private sector which has limited manpower and financial resources.
	We should also remember that small businesses comprise 99 per cent of all businesses in this country; they employ 44 per cent of the private sector workforce; and generate 37 per cent of the output. They also create virtually all new jobs in the economy. There has been a torrent of legislation in this area. Indeed, there have been over 3,800 new directives in this year alone. It is interesting to note that Britain has fallen from ninth to 19th in the world competitive league. With facts like these one has to question whether this sort of well meaning legislation will not end up being detrimental to businesses and their employers as a whole.

Baroness Gould of Potternewton: My Lords before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him a question. At the beginning of his speech, he said that past legislation has failed. He went on to give us explicit details of the problem. If it has failed, what is the solution? If we should not have specific legislation, how do we ensure that legislation works?

Lord Rotherwick: My Lords the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, raises a good question, and one that employers and government would have managed to address if it was not difficult. The problem of bullying is a real problem to business in as much as it will lose it competitiveness, but in balance with that, the complexity of introducing more legislation—and the fact that in the past, targeted legislation has not succeeded—poses a problem. I for one do not feel competent or qualified to suggest which way we should go. I only raise the questions as I see them.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, everyone who has taken part will join me in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, for the way in which she introduced this Private Member's Bill. She did it so well that she achieved almost universal support—at least for the principle behind the measure. She deserves the thanks and congratulations of the House.
	I must start, as in all cases of Private Member's Bills, by saying that the Government do not take a formal view for or against the Bill. We shall certainly take no steps to oppose its progress through your Lordships' House. I say that without any regard to the merits or otherwise of the Bill.
	Having said that, the noble Baroness knows as well as I do that, in its election manifesto, the Labour Party made a commitment to tackling this problem. The manifesto states:
	"We are committed to working with managers and employees to reduce the problems of bullying and violence in the workplace. As a major employer"—
	by that, we mean as a public sector employer—
	"our ambition is to improve the quality of work for our employees—helping recruitment and retention".
	So we share the objective of the noble Baroness and have behind it a practical objective, as it were, because we believe that good relations and a good culture in the workplace are beneficial not only for the individuals concerned but for society and the economy.
	It is my duty to say how seriously we take bullying at work, how strongly we condemn it and that we consider that a combination of legislative action and of an approach to the culture of bullying and harassment at work must be the solution to the problem.
	Let me start with the legislative side and existing law. The laws already in place cover a wide range of definable and undesirable behaviour. In effect, we have pinpointed specific issues and legislated against them. The list includes the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which all include provisions on harassment. Then there is the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Employment Rights Act 1996, which includes constructive dismissal provisions—an issue to which I shall return.
	All of those laws provide protection and enable individuals to seek remedies as a result of detrimental behaviour against them. Indeed, we are considering extending those measures and have been consulting on the provisions of the Article 13 directive, which would extend protection on the grounds of religion and other issues.
	I have listened carefully to what has been said about the inadequacies of these laws. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker referred to discrimination against a young woman and a young man and to the fact that, under existing legislation, only the young woman had a remedy. That is certainly a valid point. However, I want to turn to what is proposed, and in particular to the proposals regarding grievance procedures in the Employment Bill which is before this House.
	The Dignity at Work Bill calls for employers to have procedures in place whereby employees can bring complaints to them about their treatment. The Employment Bill contains important provisions to ensure that all employees have access to a grievance procedure. That is a major advance. We estimate that six million employees should benefit either because their employers presently have no procedures, or because they have procedures which are inferior to the proposed new statutory minima.
	The application of the new statutory procedures as an implied term in all contracts of employment should provide an important means for employees to raise their problems at work and to have them addressed by their employer at an early stage. That is likely to build on, and strengthen, the code of practice for discipline and grievance procedures produced by ACAS which can be taken into account at an employment tribunal. ACAS recommends that employers have this or a similar code in place and provides a national advice helpline service for employers and employees in addition to guidance booklets on bullying and harassment.
	I turn now to the issue of constructive dismissal. Employees who have not been expressly dismissed but who consider their employers to be in fundamental breach of contract may be entitled to resign and regard themselves as having been forced to do so by the employer's breach of contract. Subject to the necessary qualifying service, they may then be able to make a complaint of unfair dismissal to an employment tribunal. A mutual duty of trust and confidence is implied in all contracts of employment. If this breaks down because of an employer's unacceptable conduct, or indeed because of conduct that takes place for which the employer has a duty of care, the employee may be able to claim constructive unfair dismissal under the Employment Rights Act 1996. Constructive dismissal is a complex area of employment law: whether an employee has been constructively unfairly dismissed is a matter which only employment tribunals can determine in the light of all the circumstances.
	I do not claim that the legislative position as I describe it—at present and as proposed—covers the range of remedies which this Bill would provide. It is the case that the law only covers specific and definable areas of undesirable behaviour. That is the crux of the matter. Bullying is extremely hard to define. I agree that there may be cases where people feel aggrieved and upset, but their treatment may be hard to define in law. The crucial point is that what is bullying to one person may not be bullying to another. It relates to the culture of the workplace and how the individual reacts to this treatment.
	As the debate has made clear, this is a very subjective and complex issue. I believe that a large proportion of cases will be covered by the law as it is and as it will be; but that does not mean to say that we should not act to prevent other cases from slipping through the net of legislation.
	What I am saying is that further legislation would not necessarily help to clarify people's feelings or reactions to situations. It would not necessarily help the individual to find a remedy. So we are taking action specifically on the issue of bullying, intended to tackle the root cause of bullying in the first place—that is, the culture in the workplace. I do not claim that this is legislative action. I am saying that this is complementary to legislative action.
	The Government are working with the Health and Safety Executive to develop management standards which may, in time, form the basis of a code of practice. The standards are designed to help managers develop policies to tackle bullying and to improve relationships in the workplace. Of course, this will not affect the bad employers. But I do not believe that this Bill, with all its merits, will work in practice to eradicate bullying in the workplace. We all agree on the objective of eradicating bullying, but we disagree about how to achieve that. It is better to publicise the existing laws, take steps—as we are doing—to improve access to better grievance procedures and promote a better culture at work. That is the Government's approach, and I hope that it will be felt that we are not, in any sense, unsympathetic to the objectives of the Bill.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, my noble friend the Minister mentioned the Bill that is in its eighth day in Grand Committee. I have just been reading Hansard. Would the Minister confirm that the matters on which he relied so strongly—understandably—in Schedule 2, namely, the procedures that, as he rightly said, are implied in every contract, have been a matter of much discussion in Committee? The House should know that, during those discussions, the Government agreed to consider again the structure and detail of Schedule 2 and the statutory procedures over the Easter recess.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I can certainly confirm that those matters were the subject of exhaustive debate in Grand Committee. As with so many points raised in Committee, the Government have indicated a willingness to consider them before Report.

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, it is late, and I shall be brief. I sincerely thank noble Lords for their contributions.
	I thank my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton for her exposition on bullying and its effects and the complexity of the current legislation. My noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall related the Dignity at Work Bill to the Employment Bill. I am sure that those of us involved in the Employment Bill will consider what he said further. I know that my noble friend, Lord Wedderburn of Charlton, came in particularly to take part in this debate. I thank him sincerely. His vast knowledge of employment law is second to none. I appreciate his contribution.
	I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for her kind words and for her well researched, thoughtful and helpful speech. She raised a query about customers and clients. The answer is that I am not sure about that matter; I shall take it away and consider it further.
	I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, for speaking in the debate. He gave instances of anti-bullying policies. I am pleased that they are in place. I wish that there were more of them. The noble Lord raised the question of the burden on small businesses. I am very aware of that issue. My grandparents and my father were in small businesses, so I am aware of the burdens on them. However, I believe that, if legislation is clear, it helps smaller employers. The current procedures lack clarity and specificity. If we bring in a Bill of this kind—it is much clearer, as noble Lords have said—it would help smaller employers.
	I thank my noble friend the Minister in particular for the way in which he responded. I am afraid that I remain convinced that the current law is inadequate. I assume that, when the Government promised in our manifesto to stop bullying, they did not think that it was too difficult to define. I did not think that the Bill would ever totally eradicate bullying; no legislation could. We still have sex and race discrimination. However, the Bill would help.
	Finally, a number of points were made in relation to amendments to the Bill. They will be most welcomed by me in Committee. The Bill was never written in blood on a stone and I shall appreciate any amendments which noble Lords believe will assist it as it goes through the House. I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.
	On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at a quarter past ten o'clock.